The Changing American Landscape: Dutch Elm Disease

An American Elm survivor in Lynn MA, March 2014

1905 post card of elm trees on Lafayette Street in  Salem Mass

When I was a little girl I remember a time that there were arborists in my neighborhood cutting down every other tree it seemed.  I asked my mother why, and she told me the trees were sick with Dutch Elm Disease.  Years later she would comment from time to time, especially when driving down a tree depleted street, how much she missed the elm trees.

The American Elm Tree is the state tree of Massachusetts but there aren't many around anymore.  They were wiped out between 1930  - 1980 due to Dutch Elm Disease.  Over 50 million elms in the United States are said to have died from the disease during that period.  If people from the last turn of the century were able to see the landscapes now, they wouldn't recognize them because the mighty elm is missing.  Think of tree lined streets in cities all over the country with a beautiful canopy of tree tops of elms meeting in the middle.  That is what they saw. 

There were survivors, like the photo above of the elm in someone's backyard in Lynn, MA.  In the 1960s botanists began taking graphs (samples) of surviving trees all over the country and began trying to grow resistant trees.  It took a while but they have some now.  One type of resistant elm is called the Princeton, another The Valley Forge, and they have even begun selling them at Home Depot.   As new diseases are now killing our Ash and Maples, these resistant elms are being planted in their place.  Maybe people in the next turn of the century will see landscapes similar to those in the 1905 post card above.  Maybe I may live to see it.  Check out the links to learn more about Dutch Elm disease and see the New York Times article on the stand of beautiful elms that survived in Central Park, New York.

Dutch Elm Disease

New York Times article: In the Treetops, a Winter Gift