Clements Nursery Allegheny Chinquapin Chestnut Seeds

We first learned about the Clements site from our source for these seeds, Josh Dunbar of Goldberry Grove Farm in Summersville, West Virginia. On the @goldberrygrove instagram account, Josh laid out the tragic tale of the old state nursery and its impending destruction to make way for an artificial intelligence data center. His farm and nursery is about two and a half hours from Lakin, but he and members of his team were regularly traveling there to salvage what they could of its unique genetics before the bulldozers roll in.

Here's the basic story: In 1961, on the banks of the Ohio River, the state of West Virginia established a tree nursery to produce seedlings, especially for reforestation and reclamation programs at abandoned strip mines and other places impacted by the coal industry. By 1964, they shipped out their first trees, and by the time they closed in 2021, they'd distributed tens of millions of trees. Incidentally, the 126-acre site is located on land formerly owned by Mark Twain's grandparents (though the similarity of his birth name, Samual Clemens, with the name Clements is purely coincidental).

In 1976, researchers including Dr. Gary Griffin (Virginia Tech), Dr. John Elkins (Concord University) & Bruce Givens (West Virginia Dept. of Agriculture) planted at Clements a diversity of wild American chestnut and Allegheny chinquapin seeds collected from the few blight-surviving but still nut-producing wild trees they could find across WV, Virginia, and Maryland. A second orchard was established in the 90s from the surviving 70s trees, solidifying the site as a critical genetic repository and seed source for people trying to re-establish the "redwood of the east" and its less well-known little cousin. The chestnut blight fungus causes most surviving American chestnut trees (Castanea dentata) to die back to their roots before reaching sexual maturity, while Allegheny chinquapins (Castanea pumila) eventually die back to their roots as well, but not before producing seeds for many years. In that way, it can be said that they're less affected by the blight.

After the closure of Clements State Tree Nursery — blamed on the reduced demand for tree seedlings as there are far fewer mine reclamations taking place today — researchers from the American Chestnut Foundation and others were still allowed to come and harvest nuts every fall and take cuttings from trees every winter. But recently the state announced that they're selling the land to a corporation called Nscale which plans to build a massive AI data center, believed to ultimately be for Anthropic. Many of the details have been kept hidden. But what is public is not good at all. Initially, they said the trees could be bulldozed as soon as this fall, and told interested parties that access to the site would only be allowed up to November 1st, 2026, but after activists like Josh raised a hue and cry on social media (even Bette Midler made a post about it), the state attempted to make some concessions. Now the Governor says the trees will be available for researchers for one more year of harvesting in situ (2027), and then after that they plan to dig up and relocate the trees in late 2027, either to a new site or to a new location on the same property, at Nscale's expense. Of course, if you know anything about mature hardwood trees, and chestnuts in particular, you know they are not easy to move once they're a decade old, let alone three or five decades! So the state and Nscale's plan is essentially to kill the trees.

You can follow @goldberrygrove to find out how to to get involved in the ongoing movement to save these important trees. But in the meantime you can also plant these seeds to help maintain the legacy of Clements in your own garden or farm.

Big thanks to Josh and Abigail and the Goldberry Grove team for getting these seeds to us. It's a real honor. But customers, we only have a limited supply, so if there are still any in stock as you're reading this, we highly recommend you add them to your cart immediately.

Thanks for helping to preserve these important chinquapin lineages!

GROWING TIPS: Like all chestnuts, these seeds can not be allowed to freeze or dry out before planting. We recommend either starting them soon after they arrive — in deep pots, safe from rodents, and in an at least semi-protected area like a garage or cool basement — or else putting them in a good growing medium (peat, potting soil, even sand) and keeping them moist and cold all winter in the fridge. Seeds are likely to sprout under both conditions, or at least put out a root, which is fine and to be expected (indeed, some might already be sprouting by the time they reach you). The most important thing, both in the initial germination stage and for the first two years especially, is to protect the seeds and seedlings from predation. Small mammals relish these seeds as much as humans, and even the young roots of the trees are tasty enough to them to be dug up and chewed on, so growing them under 1/2" gauge metal hardware cloth or something similar is absolutely imperative. Trees started in containers should have at least a foot or two of space for the roots to grow, as they quickly produce a long, firm taproot. Plant trees in well-drained soil in a sunny location for best results, and protect from browsing deer until quite tall.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON CHINQUAPINS FROM 1898:

Below is the aforementioned article from the third page of the Saturday, November 26th,1898 edition of the Trenton [NJ] Evening Times, which was reprinted from the New York Sun, attesting to the interest in the rare chinquapins at that time, just a few years before the blight hit. Please excuse the now-offensive terminology used by the authors in describing Black people (who are otherwise discussed with appropriate humanity). It provides a fascinating glimpse into not-too-distant history:

“Oh, look, Maria, chinquapins! I’ve never seen any in New York before. Doesn’t that make you think of the Black Mingo place and the old times?” and the fashionably attired matron, who had stopped her companion at the fruitshop window on Broadway eyed the little basket of shiny, pointed nuts with interest.

“Chinquapins! Why it’s like meeting old friends. Let’s order some set home for the children,” said the older woman, and the two passed into the shop.

“Do chinquapins sell readily in New York?” repeated the nut dealer. “Well, they do and they don’t, or rather, they’re merely an experiment. I got hold of this consignment by chance, sent unsolicited by a friend who had come across the chinquapin in some of his explorations and had a small lot gathered this year for market. People buy them more on account of association than anything else. They are more delicate than the chestnut and of rare flavor, but too small for the candy and cake maker to bother with or to be used for the table. They are nice to nibble at in between times. I like them, although I didn’t know what they were at first until I read the letter that came along a day or two after the nuts. When I found that they were liked by Southern people I put them outside in the display of other nuts. I’ve had experiences before of how much people here in New York like the things they have been used to at home. Any number of strange West India and Bermuda fruits have caught on here in that way, novelties and slow sellers at first, but getting really popular after a season or two, like the alligator pear [chayote], for instance, or the liche nut [litchi].

“I’ve been amused somewhat at the attention those little chinquappins [sic] have attracted. Lots of people stop to look at them who don’t come to buy, and then again some of my best paying customers order them just as those ladies did just now. Invariably the buyers are people who have lived at some time down South and have seen the chinquapin growing or perhaps gone chinquapin hunting. The husband of one of those ladies bought a big rice plantation on the Carolina coast. They lived on it for a while and I believe be sunk a good deal of money in the venture. At any rate, she has Southern relatives and is fond of the country. The little negroes used to bring her the chinquapins at this time of year and she took an interest in them, both the nuts and the gatherers.

“Two or three days ago an old gentleman came in looking peased [sic] to ask where I got the nuts. He ordered three quarts and took some and put them in his pocket as though they were precious. He said the sight of them took him back forty years. He was born and brought up on a cotton plantation where the chinquapins grew wild in the woods, and he used to gather them every fall. They grow profusely on quite a large bush, and the outer one is as big as a walnut and covered with prickly spines that makes them all the harder to get at. The bush is very handsome, but grows usually in the most inaccessible places, out in the swamps and woods. I think they would repay cultivation, for the best of them are exceptionally sweet, tender and well-flavored.

“Chinquapins have caught on in Philadelphia,”; said a wholesale nut dealer at headquarters down by the Washington Market, “ but they are practically unknown to New York. I had several lots consigned to me without previous notice, and no one of the dealers in this neighborhood knew what they were. All agreed that they were good. One day a darkey from New Jersey happened in. He takes a cart round the country peddling nuts and vegetables and is a good, square fellow to deal with.

“‘Chinquapins; where did you get them?’ he asked me on first sight of the open bags and he pounded on them just as a man greets an old, familiar friend. ‘I can sell every chinquapin of the lot to the colored people back in Jersey City,’ he told me, and backed his wagon up and bundled in the whole batch.”

The chinquapin doesn’t need cooking like the chestnut to reduce it to toothsomeness. It is at its best when allowed to ripen thoroughly on the tree, or if packed too soon and only experience can determine the proper stage of maturity from the appearance of the outer coat, it will mellow if laid away in a dark, dry place where insects won’t breed. Nobody has ever tried to cultivate it; but just as it is, the nut is prized by both whites and blacks in the region where it grows. —New York Sun