WV trees   Fores-@aol.com
  Oct 13, 2004 04:53 PDT 
ENTS:

I am currently working on a patch of woods in central WV that was never
salvaged after the chestnut blight. The land is steep and the skeletons of
massive chestnut trees lie all over the place. We have measured the stumps of
several fallen giants that are between 8' and 10' across. Mixed in amongst the
old dead chestnut are red oak and chestnut oaks that run up to 10' CBH yellow
poplar up to 10' CBH have been encountered but many of the trees are
averaging 8' CBH.

It is really something to walk up to the carcass of a chestnut tree that has
been dead for over 75 years that you cannot see over!

So far, we have not encountered any sugar maple over 8' CBH but there is a
lot of ground to cover yet.

Realizing that areas like I describe are increasingly rare, especially on
private property.

The area I describe has been burned several times and is a second growth
forest.

The offer is still open for anyone who wants to venture down here to see
some big trees....we should have a few for a couple dozen more years.

Russ Richardson
Re: WV trees   Fores-@aol.com
  Oct 13, 2004 16:40 PDT 
Randy:

The dead chestnut trees are on a very steep slope and most are decomposed to
the point where their impressive size is really more related to the size of
the stumps they topple from.

The area has been burned several times in the past and much of the wood has
long since been burned away. In some places, the tipup mounds from where
they fell have created small flats on a hillside otherwise dominated by
continuous 70% slopes. Stepping on top of the rotting chestnut as you traverse the
hillside is a certain way to kiss the dirt quick!

The land isn't near any city....Charleston, the WV State capitol and largest
city is 75 miles away and has a population of 55,000.

This property does not contain the most impressive chestnut carcasses I have
encountered. Webster County, WV likely still contains some extremely large
chestnut stumps and some of the culls that were never salavaged can only
leave a person shaking their head at what was lost.

The blight hit here 77 years ago and I have many neighbors that still
remember the change in the woods like it was yesterday.

It has been said by Forest Service researchers that as much of as 90% of the
WV forest cover was chestnut at the outbreak of the blight.

Russ