The verse from Isaiah at the right was the epigraph on my Ph.D. dissertation in botany, so it seemed appropriate to use again as I transition from teaching to preaching. I suppose that not many scientists quote Scripture in such a situation, but it suited me. There was plenty to sing about when I finally finished my degree, and I could imagine the trees clapping their hands as well.
I studied three understory tree species in Duke Forest, because that fit in with the work of my major professor. Given the choice, I would have preferred to work with one of the most magnificent of North American tree species, American chestnut (Castanea dentata). I read as much as I could about chestnuts and the chestnut blight that leveled them, discovering that my home state of Pennsylvania had led the losing battle for their preservation in the 1920s. Perhaps if I had met Sandy Anagnostakis, the "chestnut lady," thirty years earlier, my life in the forest would have been different.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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3 comments:
I remember clearly the day you finished that degree, and still have the photo of us on the front steps of the little house in Durham!
I remember that picture, too. As I recall, I was bleary-eyed but happy! We both thought that day would never come.
Oh my!!!! So you are interested in Castanea dentata!
As a child, seeing the old rootstocks putting up shoots decades after the trees had died from the blight made a lasting impression on me. Playing around the old barns and rail fences made from chestnut wood showed me what the species had meant to the Appalachians.
My current point of contact is financial support of the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation. I would not be surprised if you know some of the Virginia Tech people and others involved in this. I sometimes dream of retiring back to the family farm back in West Virginia (now abandoned, and half of it fallen into our ownership) and planting chestnuts to help with their breeding program, also volunteer labor in the ACCF's work of plantings in National Forest clearings (after logging operations, wildfires, etc.). It probably won't happen, partly because my dream is not shared by my wife, but one never knows.
When I was at Duke I worked at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, mostly in the section that was more or less “rustic” and devoted to local forest plants. It was great fun, and a very fortunate work-study posting – I could just as easily have spent my summers working the big flowerbeds, which I would have found very dull. (I did get a share of that, and of such tasks as lawn mowing, transplanting chrysanthemums, etc., for which the entire workforce was engaged) I wish I had paid closer attention and learned more. But I was too busy with music, which has turned out well enough.
This is your friend Castanea_d or “Cassi.” I have had such a time with trying to post OpenID replies from my “real” online locus that I decided to go ahead and open a Google account so I can comment directly. OpenID is a great idea, but seems to work only sporadically.
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