Saturday,8:00 AM. 58 degrees, wind variable, at times gusty. The skies are blue with some haze. The channel is slightly wrinkled and the barometer predicts rain, but it is not humid and any rain will be passing showers.
Today is the start of the two-day 47th annual Arts Festival, and there are over 90 exhibitors. Two years ago it was virtually blown into the lake by a mini-tornado, and everyone will have their weather-eye peeled.
The American chestnut, Castanea dentata, was a dominant tree species in North America until it was virtually wiped out by the Asiatic chestnut blight a hundred years ago. Almost everyone knows the story. Its wood was highly valued and its nuts prized by man and squirrel alike. There are still remnant population of chestnut trees here and there which may or may not be resistant to the blight, and despite much research, no truly resistant varieties have been developed. The chestnut tree (in flower) pictured here was grown from a seed collected from trees on the Apostle Highlands Golf Course by Howard Larsen. There is also a mature chestnut tree on Seventh and Wilson. The American chestnut was a fabled tree, and it was said that a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic to the Mississippi jumping from one chestnut tree to another without ever touching the ground, and yet they are now virtually extinct. Other trees have taken their place in nature’s scheme of things. Perhaps someday they will return, spreading from resistant populations or through man’s ingenuity. But they will probably remain, like so many other once-dominant species, mostly a memory.
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