THE DYING ELM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 January 1931, Page 9

THE DYING ELM

AN OBSCURE DISEASE Notoriously treacherous, the elm is much too beautiful a tree and much too characteristic of the English countryside for its extinction to be accepted without great regret,,states the “Sunday Times." But, so far as can at present be seen, there is no way of curing or circumscribing the obscure disease which smote a solitary elm in Hertfordshire in 1927, and has now spread to over twenty counties, in the South and Midlands. The immediate cause, it appears from the report of the Forestry Commission, is a fungus peculiar to trees of the elm family, and there seems reason to suppose that the infecting spores are disseminated by insects and birds rather than by the wind. The worst offender probably is the elm bark beetle. But even if the exterriiination of the beetle were possible, and if all the already infected trees were destroyed, migratory birds from the Continent would only too soon introduce the disease again. But it is not in the nature of European man to sit down fatalistically under such visitations, and we may look for some endeavour to co-ordinate the results, such as they are, reached by British and Continental workers on this problem. There should have, been such joint effort earlier. In all sqcli matters it is unwise to let Nature get a long start withing making sure that she is in benign or at worst in no* more than sportive mood. It is, an interesting reflection that'not the human or,.animal families only, but the vegetable kingdom as well, is subject to the mysterious and mortal laws of epidemic.