Dutch Elm Disease pg.3
Along countless streets for many miles in cities and towns throughout the tree’s extensive native range in the eastern half of North America, even as late as the early 1960s, this scene abounded, the effect of the only species capable of giving us such majestic splendor.
Industry and government programs to control the disease began almost at once, but many streets and boulevards were monocultures of a single species, one that was even more vulnerable than the Dutch elm: the American elm, aka water elm, soft elm, white elm or Florida elm.
Making matters worse, the trees were often planted close enough together for their root systems to have grafted together. The fungus was able to infect one tree and move underground to the next, and then the next, right down the street. Meanwhile, the bark beetles could travel through the arched branches to transmit the disease to the other side of the street.
The disease spread through the northeast United States and eastern Canada, then west and south. From the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, parks were decimated. Whole streets, once lined with stately elms, were laid bare. Whole cities, once known for their miles of elm-shrouded streets, became arboreal wastelands.
Carley recalls the hurt:
Many of us remember how painful it was for our communities to witness the tragedy that recurred throughout the eastern states during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many remember watching helplessly as countless main streets, parks, historic sites and neighborhoods that had been so handsomely graced with fine elms were transformed within a few years into barren, urban-looking landscapes devoid of trees, the result of a frighteningly efficient epidemic that had appeared suddenly.
