I'm fascinated by the story of the chestnut blight, which killed an estimated four billion American chestnut trees in the first half of the 20th century. Four billion! Thousands and thousands of trees dying across the landscape each day. This disease had a transformative effect upon the American landscape, but it's largely forgotten today.
I wrote about the chestnut blight, and some inspiring efforts to replant blight-resistant trees at Flight 93 National Memorial in western Pennsylvania, for the magazine of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Here's a link if you'd like to take a look.
Great article -- it's interesting to speculate what this did to wildlife in eastern North America. I think I read somewhere that, before the blight, a squirrel could travel from Georgia to Maine and never touch ground. All those trees would have been an incredible sight.
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