Castanea … From Blight to Backcross Breeding

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Not far from my home at the base of the South Mountain in Cumberland County, there is a wide spot in the road where you can park a couple cars at the edge of a block of public land. From that place, the visible but overgrown bed of a Colonial-era haul road ascends the mountain. Scattered along the road are the small, flat and circular remains of 18th- and 19th-century charcoal kilns that...
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Fayette at the Crossroads

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fayette at the Crossroads Fayette County has always been at the crossroads, both literally and figuratively, its destiny shaped by its location, the incredible riches of its natural resources and the vi­tality of a people descended from al­most every nation of Europe. It has a son of dual personality, geo­graphically divided between mountains and lowlands, historically divided into two almost equal eras of economic...
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Edward Abbey

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Edward Abbey No Comment. In 1989, this pithy epitaph was chiseled in stone somewhere in Arizona’s vast Cabeza Prieta wilderness. It marks the end of a life full of “comment” – the life of environmental advocate and Pennsylvania native Edward Abbey (1927-1989). Edward Abbey was born in Indiana, Indiana County, but claimed the village of Home, ten miles to the north, as his birth­place,...
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