Hope
BRIEF:
A vigorous tree with variable nuts running up to thirty-three grams, exceptionally sweet and at their best eaten raw.
DETAILED:
Hope, also called Miller's Hope, comes from Greg Miller's program in Ohio. Route 9 Cooperative holds a graft of it.
The nuts are variable — some average, some very large, running as high as thirty-three grams, which works out to about fourteen to the pound. Michael Nave describes them as exceptionally sweet and at their peak eaten raw rather than roasted, which is unusual. Most chestnuts improve with cooking. A nut worth eating straight out of the shell is worth noting.
The tree is described as extraordinarily vigorous.
A word about the name. There are at least three chestnuts called Hope in American growing — this one, a selection from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, and a Sweet Hope out of California that may well be the same tree as ours under a different name. We spent a while sorting out which one we had. Ours traces to Miller, and the description matches.