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Imagine for a moment the perfect tree. It would be broad and fast-growing, with a massive trunk. It would have a dense, straight-grain, rot-resistant, durable wood, ideal for furniture, construction, split-rail fences, roofing shingles, railroad ties and telephone poles. It would produce prodigious, reliable quantities of mast, the seed, nut or fruit consumed by wildlife.

The American chestnut is this and more. Before the chestnut blight swept through our area in the 1930s and destroyed 3.5 billion trees, one of every four trees in the Appalachian region was a chestnut. For families throughout our region a century ago, it was the wood of their crib, their schoolroom desk, their log home and their casket; a true cradle-to-grave resource.

The loss of these trees is a story of heartbreak and sorrow. The potential restoration is one of hopefulness and optimism. Gary Griffin, professor emeritus of plant pathology at Virginia Tech, has devoted his career to the teaching, research and experimentation in making it happen.

When I met with him and University Distinguished Professor and Forestry Department head Harold Burkhart in Burkhart's campus office on a rainy morning in May, he told me, "This story and the restoration work is captivating to young and old people alike."

The tragedy began in 1904 when chestnuts in the Bronx, N.Y., were found to be infected by blight. The blight was caused by a fungus traced to Japanese chestnut nursery stock, imported to the United States. In Japan and China, the blight and the chestnut evolved together, so it was not fatal to those species, but in the States, there was no resistance. The fungus invaded the tree through wounds or broken branches and grew beneath the bark, blocking the passage of nutrients and water. In infected trees, mortality was total.

In ensuing years, airborne spores wafted upward of 50 miles per year northward into New England and southward through Virginia to Alabama. Within 50 years, Appalachian forests were decimated, leaving hillsides covered with standing pallid skeletons, resembling ghostly tombstones. The devastating effect on wildlife was commensurate.

Burkhart suggested it may be the largest destruction of a forest resource in recorded history.

Griffin showed me a sample of the fungus in a laboratory container. It looked sinister, ominous.

"The roots of older trees in the forest understory are still viable," he continued, "so they are still producing trees." But the fungus still permeates the air. Invariably, within 10 years of age, new trees contract the blight and succumb. If a tree is too young to produce seeds before it dies, the roots will have invested more energy in the sapling than they receive from the tree. The new shoots will eventually die because of inadequate sunlight on the best growth sites, where hardwood competition is high.

Scientific understanding of tree disease has increased dramatically in recent years, and a multifaceted approach using molecular biology, biotechnology and conventional breeding is under way to restore the chestnut to its former glory. First, scientists are looking for ways to genetically engineer stronger trees with greater resistance to the fungus. Second, they are experimenting with ways to weaken the fungus through a virus that naturally infects the blight fungus on many large, surviving chestnut trees; in essence a "blight of the blight." Third, they are looking at forest management approaches that involve specific placement of individual trees to strengthen the stock. Armed with this knowledge and experience, the goal is to mass propagate the trees.

Burkhart said that restoration would be a good thing economically and ecologically. "We have the knowledge and are developing the technology," he said. "And we have hope. We're going to make it."

The American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation is one of many organizations devoted to the restoration of the tree. It receives donations of $20,000 to $25,000 annually and uses this money to support students at Virginia Tech working on chestnut blight and the tree's recovery.

Said Griffin, "This is a social effort as well as a biological effort."

And a noble effort, I might add.

The holocaust of the American chestnut began about 100 years ago. Wouldn't it be awesome if within another human generation they were back, numbering in the billions again?

Michael Abraham grew up in Christiansburg and lives in Blacksburg. He keeps doing the things his mother warned him against.