By Jim Melvin

At the beginning of the 20^th century, an insidious fungus – imported from Asia and destructive to American chestnut trees – began an airborne march across 200 million acres of eastern woodlands. From Maine to Florida, an estimated 4 billion chestnut trees succumbed to the infestation, notoriously known as the chestnut blight. By the 1940s, the towering behemoths were decimated – and an essential component of our ecosystem was eliminated.