Brian Yates

Alderman-at-Large, Ward 5
City of Newton, MA

The Chestnut tree played a major role in the development of Newton. Chestnut Street on which I live is one of the major North-South routes across the city. Chestnut Hill is one of our villages. Unfortunately the trees that gave their names to this street and this village were virtually wiped out in Newton and elsewhere by the Chestnut Blight. The American Chestnut Foundation has been cross breeding a new American Chestnut with the blight resistance of the Japanese Chestnut. The blight-resistant strain of Chestnut is one generation away from completion . You can help bring back the Chestnut by joining the American Chestnut Foundation (www.acf.org), finding blight-resistant trees that escaped the blight, and planting Chestnut seeds and seedlings that will be used for the final stage of cross-breeding. The Massachusetts Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation plants new Chestnuts in Massachusetts and works with surviving Chestnut trees and stumps. (www.masschestnut.org)

This page last updated on Tuesday April 01, 2008