A hundred and twenty years ago the American chestnut was one of the great trees of the eastern woods. The Forest Service says its range ran “from central Maine west to southeastern Michigan, and south to northern Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia,” and that “the finest stands were in the southern Appalachians, where mature trees were generally 3 to 5 feet in diameter and 60 to 90 feet in height.” Then a fungus came. The Park Service records it: “In 1904 however, the non-native chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) was introduced and quickly spread through forests of the eastern U.S. By 1950, almost all American chestnuts in their native range were dead.” The orchards counted today grew up in a country that had already lost the tree. Which state has the most acres of chestnut trees old enough to make nuts? Tap the states most-to-least.
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Chestnuts are the mountain tree. West Virginia! 🐾
2Answer
The real order is…
Michigan — 856 acres, out of 4,419 acres for the whole country, and 2.29×Florida, the next state on the printed list. Now look at where the tree's old kingdom finished. Among the states with a printed number, Tennessee is 15th, West Virginia 18th, North Carolina 19th and Kentucky 22nd — the mountains that grew the country's finest chestnut stands are nowhere near the top of the chestnut table. What became of the tree as a crop, the Forest Service records in one flat sentence: “American chestnut, however, has been eliminated as a commercial species by the chestnut blight.” Why today's orchards ended up where they did is a separate question, and USDA's table does not answer it. And here is the size of what went missing. In 1928, phone, telegraph and electric-power companies bought 808,000 chestnut poles in a single year — “more than 25 percent of the total of all poles purchased in that year.” All the bearing chestnut acres in this table, added together, would fit inside seven square miles.
📚 BackgroundA hundred and twenty years ago this was one of the great trees of America. The Forest Service's own account says that before the blight, the American chestnut's range “extended from central Maine west to southeastern Michigan, and south to northern Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia,” and that “the finest stands were in the southern Appalachians, where mature trees were generally 3 to 5 feet in diameter and 60 to 90 feet in height” — with some “as large as 7 feet in diameter and 120 feet high.” Then a fungus arrived. The National Park Service dates it: “In 1904 however, the non-native chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) was introduced and quickly spread through forests of the eastern U.S. By 1950, almost all American chestnuts in their native range were dead.” The Forest Service's verdict on the tree as a crop is one flat sentence: “American chestnut, however, has been eliminated as a commercial species by the chestnut blight.” So the acres in the table below are orchards grown for nuts, in a country that had already lost the tree that made the name famous. USDA's table counts acres, not kinds: it does not say which sort of chestnut is standing on any of them.(USDA Forest Service, “American Chestnut … an American wood” (FS-230); U.S. National Park Service, “American Chestnuts in Rock Creek”)
Note: acres of chestnut trees old enough to bear nuts, in 2022, from USDA's Census of Agriculture — a count taken once every five years, not a yearly estimate. Trees too young to produce are counted on a separate line and are not in this table. And the table counts acres, not kinds: it does not say which sort of chestnut is growing on any of them. USDA NASS. USDA printed a chestnut figure for 31 states. Six more — California, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska and New Hampshire — are withheld because too few farms grow chestnuts there to print a number without giving those farms away, and the remaining 13 states are not in the table at all. Michigan's figure is larger than everything those six withheld states could hold together, so first place here is a national position — a check this site re-runs on every build. Below first place a withheld state could sit anywhere in the list, so read the rest as the order among the states with a printed number.
USDA NASS Quick Stats: CHESTNUTS - ACRES BEARING, 2022 Census of Agriculture, by state (2026-08-27) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA prints a chestnut figure for 31 states; 6 more are withheld because too few farms grow chestnuts there to publish a number without identifying them, and the remaining 13 states are not in the table at all. Michigan's figure is larger than everything the six withheld states could hold together, so first place here is a national position — a check this site re-runs on every build. Below first place a withheld state could sit anywhere, so read the rest as the order among the states with a printed number.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick CHESTNUTS / CHESTNUTS - ACRES BEARING, Census year 2022, Total domain, and compare states.