Another load of junk

[Sawyerfortyish]

Well thats what I thought when the company putting a new bridge in town stopped by. The man in charge wanted to know if I wanted any of the oak pilings that had supported the bridge foundation so he didn't have to throw them in a dumpster. He said they were solid and that they were under water for 75 years. What a load of junk I thought to myself but I told him I'd come and look. After he left I got thinking oak 75yrs ago was not the dominant spieces here. So i'm going to look if it's what I think it might be it would have a real value because it no longer exists here or anywhere else that I know of.

[sandmar]

Do we think it might be.............chestnut.........shhhhhhhhhhhhhh! ;)

Sandmar

[twoodward15]

there isn't any oak up there??  I'm only a hundred or so miles south of you and it's everywhere here.  I cut down 55 in my back yard a few years ago.  All but 2 were red.  Some big ones too and one curly!!  I can't believe there isn't any oak up there.

[Ron Wenrich]

You didn't quite read that right.  He said oak wasn't the dominant species 75 years ago when the pilings were put in.  Of course, nothing means the pilings came from the local area.  They could have been shipped in from the south.

If they are oak, they would most likely be white oak.  I'm not too sure that chestnut was used as pilings.

[maple flats]

If they are oak I would take them. They do not deteriate under water, only where they are wet/dry back and forth. A few years ago on some land I was selling I cut some oak and in clearing a path to get the logs out I cut up some for firewood that had been on the forest floor for GOD knows how long (they were very punky for about 1-1.5 " and under that were completely solid. The pilings should be good inside even if the surface looks like trash. If you want, just test 1 or 2 with a chainsaw and see. I think they will really surprise you how good they are.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Sandmar thats exactly what I was hoping for. I went and looked theres about 20 logs just as sound as the day they were cut no rot at all some even have bark on them yet. I seen locust,oak and believe it or not black walnut. I usally don't get involved in small amounts of logs like this but for nostialgia I'm going to pick them up saw and see what the wood looks like. I was hoping they were chestnut. Dad had told me stories of trying to walk in the woods when he was 10 or 12 yrs old and how you could walk on fallen tree trunks for a half a mile and never put a foot on the ground all dead Chestnut. Since most of the barns around here are framed with chestnut I was hopeful. As soon as they finish pulling them out I'll go pickup whats there and then will see just what I got.
    Does anyone know if theres any truth about logs being under water for a long time being changed somehow by the water :-\. The workers at this job were trying to tell that wood changes somehow. As far as I know the water only preserves logs.

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Being in the underwater logging business, I have a couple of observations.

  We do Heart Cypress and Heart Pine. The logs were at least 50 years old and sometimes 100's of years old, when cut, somewhere around 60-150 years ago.

  We use the term "old growth" as it means the logs were old when cut, long ago. The old wood has a very different characteristic. It was stable when felled, pretty much. Our lumber barely moves as we take it off the log.

  We don't turn and cut, turn and cut, like the guys here sawing fresh cut logs. I open one side, according to defect (rare), or heart check (prominent), and saw down to where I can rotate 180º. Then I saw down to my first dimension, say 8" for beams. Then I rotate 90º and saw down to get no wane. Rotate and saw through and through, MAYBE flipping the cant because the heart check deviates. Always plan on junk wood in the center of our logs,  sometimes we luck out.

  The logs from the river stay flat and straight. If we pull a log off the turf in the swamp, sometimes it will bow, warp, and pinch the blade.

  Water soaked (completely) are a whole different thing.

  Pilings, I would suspect to be fairly stable, because they were felled many years ago, from older growth (stable) trees.

  Maybe Ron Scott or Ellmoe can step in and correct anything I said.  ;D ;D

[twoodward15]

That's interesting.  I'm not from jersey and never realized that chestnut was so prominent here.  Huh, learn something new every day.  Guess I'll start keeping an eye out for it.  Thanks for the lesson.  I just assumed oak was very dominant here and had been forever.

[Sawyerfortyish]

twoodward I have a 410 acre farm and a couple years ago the forester was looking at my forestry management and found one small chestnut. He said that was the first in a long time he had seen. It was long before my time and i'm not sure what killed them I think it was some kind of blight. But they all died in a short time. Oak has taken over in this area as the dominant tree.

[twoodward15]

Very interesting.  There must have been thousands of them to be able to walk on them in the woods without touching the ground.  I'm from western new york originally.  my father and uncles all say that there are still a few stands of them in some places up there.  You can still get it at some of the amish mills from what I hear.

[MSU_Keith]

Chestnut is actually making a come back in Michigan.  Seams they have a blight resistant strain.  Also, the nuts themselves are high priced items for big city chefs:

www.greeen.msu.edu/ChestnutValueAdded.pdf

www.chestnutfarms.com

Thinking about planting some myself...in 100 years my great-grandchildren can build a nice barn.

[Riles]

If you're planting American chestnuts, don't bet the farm on your great grandkids getting enough lumber for a barn.

I recently put a few nut trees in on my farm in NC and added one American and one chinese hybrid to the orchard. $35 each for twigs. The story goes that the American chestnut the nursery was selling came from stock that supposedly survived the blight, hence they think it might have some natural resistance. They weren't offering any guarantees. The chinese hybrid came from a project Auburn University was doing to improve the existing hybrids for flavor. Seems the American chestnuts had the best nuts, and the existing chinese hybrids still left something to be desired in the flavor department.

Although the natural range of the tree is basically North America east of the Mississippi, some are cultivated out west where the parasite that spreads the fungus is absent. When you consider that the eastern forests were basically elm and chestnut, both of which are essentially completely gone due to blight since the turn of the century, oak has become dominant by default. A very recent change.

[Ron Wenrich]

Chestnuts were a prominent species in many areas of the east after the original forests were cleared.  Chestnuts were also grown in orchard settings.  My county had over 50% of the forests in chestnut back in 1900.

Chestnut blight was introduced from Europe.  European chestnuts are resistant to the blight, and Chinese chestnuts are immune.  Very few American chestnuts have survived.  Even seed sources are tainted.  There is 1 stand in Wisconsin (I think), that has survived.  But, the signs of blight have been spotted there in the past few years.  Chestnut lumber was still being cut back in the '70s as it took until the late '50s to make its way down to Tennessee.

Currently, the American Chestnut Foundation is working on reviving the chestnut.  The goal is to get a chestnut that has American characteristics (a nice straight bole) with Chinese immunity to the blight.  They did this by taking an American and crossing it with a Chinese.  But, that gives a 50/50 American/Chinese.

They then go and infect the stand.  Those that survive have some blight resistance.  They then cross that with an American chestnut.  The next generation is 75/25 American.  They reinfect that generation, and continue until they get a 90/10 American/Chinese hybrid. 

They started these operations back in the '80s and have only now reached the 90/10 stage.  Some of those seedlings should be available in the coming years, but don't look to get a whole forest full. 

American Chestnut Foundation:  http://www.acf.org/

The biggest chestnut I have run across was about 14" and appeared healthy.  I was also shown a stump that was probably about a 20" chestnut.  The electice company had put in a line and discovered the chestnut.  They put the line around the tree, so it wouldn't be cut.  But, the logger clearing the right-of-way had other ideas. 

[maple flats]

In the late 60's I lived along the Hudson Valley in NY state, just east of Newberg and there were several chessnut trees surrounding the development I lived in. As I remember most were either dead or almost dead. Many were probably between 3' and 4' dbh, some larger. Now they are all gone and I don't think any sign remains where they were. I didn't know much about wood at that time, now I know very slightly more but at least that is moving in the right direction. Hey, it only took 40 years.

[RoadKill]

There are still chestnut trees around that sprout from the roots of long gone trees.  I have three or four that are alive and growing.  They get to be 20 or 30 ft tall, maybe 6" diameter, and then the blight kills that stem, but other ones take its place.  The leaf is unmistakeable - long and heavily serrated.  I'll take some pictures of them in leaf if spring ever comes to Baaahstin this year.  I've used wood from chestnuts that died back in the 20's  for lots of things - flooring, picture frames, panelling.  The standing dead trees usually got some kind of borer, so everything became "wormy chestnut".  I remember reading that the chestnuts were a major source of food for wildlife hundreds of years ago.

[Sawyerfortyish]

How can you tell a Chinese chestnut from an American chestnut? Are there noticable differances? I had a man come in today that insisted he had a large chestnut tree on his farm. He said it had small nuts that had a hull. The way he described them sounded like the hull on a Hickory nut. My dad has a chestnut on his lawn that has large burrs that are very pickey and inside that is the chestnut.

[populus]

Sawyerfortyish -

I'm interested in your locust logs. Are they large and straight?  There is a famous tree, called shipmast locust, that produced enormous, straight logs used for ships masts. Nobody seems to know where they came from - they are a male-sterile subspecies of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia var. rectissima). Your pilings could be shipmast locust.  Shipmast locust was mostly known on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley. It could have been present in New Jersey. So, what do they look like?  They should mill up real nicely.

[Ron Wenrich]

Here's a link for the various chestnut Ids:

http://www.westmorelandconservancy.org/amch/ChestnutComparison.html

There are some American chestnuts that are remote enough to have survived the blight.  Others are just more blight resistant.  The American Chestnut Foundation is very interested in these trees for breeding purposes.  They'll even send someone out to check it out.

There has also been a lot of inbreeding between the American, European and Chinese strains.  The pollen goes for miles.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Thanks Ron thats just what I was looking for. I saved that link maybe when the tree comes out in leaf I can tell just what kind of tree it is.  populus the locust around me are all black locust. The bigger trees usally are full of ants and really don't grow that straight.  These pilings i'm sure came from the local woods even tho the railroad was near they could have been shipped. All the logs are trees that are natural to this area. Since this was and still is a small farming town in a remote part of the state very near big sections of woods I think the trees are local. The locust logs that they used for pilings I see are about 12-14" dia and had to be cut off because they couldn't  pull them. They cut the logs into 8-10' lengths and put them aside.

[MSU_Keith]

Ron - Thanks for the great link.

After doing some reading there I guess it be another hundred years + until I can realize my dream of being the 'Bill Gates' of chestnuts. :D :D :D