The Dartmouth Elms
Their Irreplaceable Beauty Appreciated as Dutch Elm Disease Invades the Valley
IF THE DREAD DUTCH ELM DISEASE which is moving up the Connecticut Valley should reach Hanover, it would find approximately 3,500 street elms as potential victims. Would the beautiful shade trees of the campus and town fall before the epidemic which ravaged the trees of Holland and much of Europe before it broke out in the U.S. in 1930? There is no assurance that there would be few or no fatalities for the disease kills with great rapidity. The special care which the College tree staff has given to the elms to build up their resistance, particularly in the last two years, is the surest guarantee Dartmouth has that the Dutch Elm blight will not strip the campus of its arboreal beauty. "We have made every possible preparation to meet the threatened attack," says Willard M. Gooding '11, Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds.
The severe infection which is killing elms by the thousands today in Connecticut and Massachusetts is a fungus growth which circulates through the tree with the movement of the sap. Deadly carriers of the spores of this fungus are the small European and American bark beetles which hatch in the crevices of the bark. When elms were first stricken out in the midwest—in Cincinnati in 1930—the origin of the infection had the experts guessing for a good many years. It was finally traced to logs of English elm which had been imported wholesale for the manufacture of elm veneer.
In 1933, some 3,800 diseased elms were found in New Jersey. During the war the destructive fungus got out of bounds. As a result, the fallen elms total 13,000 today. Add to this a large number of infected trees. Although New Hampshire reports not a single case of Dutch Elm, there are 17 cases in Vermont, with the nearest one just south of Bellows Falls. Since the infection spreads like wildfire, the proximity of these few cases has served to alert tree men in the entire surrounding region.
DDT Found Effective
One beetle carrying the disease can attack a tree and kill it. It is easy to see that a small group of beetles carried in on vehicles from an affected area could play havoc with a neighborhood of elms. The older, weakened trees would be the first to go. Trees in a strong, vigorous condition have a much better chance of survival. Aimed at maintaining good health in all college trees, the Dartmouth program of regular fertilizing and careful pruning is a very important preventive measure. Spraying with DDT twice a year under the joint College-town program of the Hanover Improvement Society is another vital precaution since it is known that this chemical has been effective in bringing the bark beetle under control.
The proportions that the epidemic has reached in other cities, however, have the scientists racing against time. Even DDT, the most powerful weapon, cannot keep pace with the disease in those cities in which it has gained a strong foothold. Experimentation with further chemical safeguards is, therefore, being carried on constantly by the Dutch Elm Disease Project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Early symptoms that are easily recognizable are discoloration and wilting of the foliage. In late summer and winter, the stricken elm is distinguishable by the persistance of dead leaves at the tips of the branches. Once the beetles have entered the bark it may take but a single season to cut off the life of the tree completely, or it may require three or four years. If a Dutch Elm case should unhappily be discovered in Hanover, the tree staff, headed by Gordon Cloud, has outlined its plan of immediate action. Prompt pruning of the infected wood may halt the inroads of the disease. A badly diseased tree, however, would have to be cut down and burned. Of course, thorough spraying of the town would follow to destroy any bark beetle that might be around.
EACH COLLEGE TREE HAS RECORD
Although the fast approach of this widespread threat has intensified local precautions, a planned program of tree care is not new to Hanover. Every tree in town is inspected annually and treatment is given to the deficient ones. To facilitate this, each college tree has an identification number and an individual record of growth, condition, and such statistics as circumference, diameter, etc. In addition to the staff of three trained men whose major work is caring for the trees of Hanover, the College employs the services of a tree specialist. Willard A. Dodge of Dodge Associates has been checking on the health of Hanover's trees since 1914, when he graduated from Massachusetts Agricultural College, and he has done a splendid job.
Perhaps the removal of two large elms on the west side of the campus this fall has puzzled some. Mr. Gooding explains that they were cut down to provide ample (•rowing space for the inner row of trees tvhich were planted as a permanent group in 1939. The elms were cut off at 20 to 25 feet from the ground, then pulled out quickly and efficiently, and cut up on the spot by means of a power saw.
"The elm is more securely rooted in the love and traditions of the American people than any other tree," writes Donald Culross Peattie, noted botanist, in his recent Atlantic article, "The Elms Go Down." Deeply rooted in the Dartmouth past, also, many campus elms are official class trees planted at the various commencements beginning with the class of 1870. The "usual initiatory service of lemonade drinking" accompanied the christening of '84's class tree, according to a copy of The Dartmouth for that year. All through the '90's the graduating classes planted elms. Today, in fact, a walk along the south end of the campus will reveal a series of markers at the base of four elms"1902" "1903" "1904" "1906."
Among the stories told about the most venerable trees on the campus is the one of the planting of the huge old Webster elm tied seven trees together, they say. Mr. Cloud, whose natural Hanover habitat seems to be a rope perch high in a tree, places the age of many of the elms at over a century. Counting the tree rings of the elms that have been felled on the campus reveals an average age of 90 to 95 years.
When, in 1922, Dr. G. E. Stone, foremost tree pathologist of the country, was called in as a consultant he made the statement that "Dartmouth has the best shade trees on its campus of any college in the country." There is sound hope for the continued safety of Dartmouth's elms in knowing that Mr. Gooding, the college tree staff, and the Hanover Improvement Society are constantly vigilant. They are watching the trees with Minute Man alertness, ready to make a concerted attack upon the beetle at the first threatening sign of Dutch Elm.
ELM-LINED COLLEGE STREET, LOOKING SOUTH PAST DARTMOUTH ROW
THIS FAVORITE ELM STANDS IN FRONT OF BAKER LIBRARY
HEAD TREE MAN on the College staff is Gordon Cloud, whose solicitous care of ccmpus elms usually takes him higher off the ground than this.
CLASS ELMS ARE IN THIS ROW AT THE SOUTH END OF CAMPUS
