“If you want to be recalled for something that you do, you will be well advised to do it under an Elm – a great Elm, for such a tree outlives the generations of men; the burning issues of today are the ashes of tomorrow, but a noble Elm is a verity that does not change with time.”
Even as Donald Culross Peattie – the most eloquent admirer trees have ever had – was writing this in the late 1940s, the elm was changing, and changing for the worse. Dutch elm disease had been introduced to this country in 1930 when a shipment of European elm burlwood arrived at a veneer mill in Ohio. Peattie recognized the disease as a serious threat, but he could not have imagined how truly catastrophic it would become. And bad as the situation was in his day, it got even worse when a more virulent strain of the disease appeared in the 1960s.
Indeed, many memorable things have been done under elms. George Washington is said to have taken command of the Continental Army in July 1775, under an elm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Peattie, a better friend to trees than to people, is delighted to discover that the famous tree was but a sapling at the time. “Washington,” he says, “is perhaps the only man who ever added stature to an Elm.”
Though American cities have unkindly been described as places “where they cut down all the trees and then named the streets after them,” elms benefited from urbanization more than any other tree species. Elms have been planted in every kind of habitation, from tiny villages to the largest city. Elm-lined streets practically defined nineteenth-century America.
Some magnificent specimens do survive here and there across Vermont and New Hampshire, often on town greens or in front of old houses, and their grandeur is undeniable. But after a moment of awe beneath the towering fountain of foliage an American elm produces, there is always a question: How long can it last?
Best to go back in time, back to when elms had just the usual afflictions, like other trees. To the time when early settlers chose house sites near elms, knowing that the soil there would be moist and fertile. Then they razed all the other trees, keeping just an elm or two. The shade of elm, from high above the roof, is perfect. Its leaves decompose rapidly and are nutrient-rich, and the tree is considered to be a “soil improving” species.
Though the wood has its well-known faults (try splitting it, for instance), it was made into a great assortment of objects in earlier days. Liquids seep out of barrels made from elm, but the wood is perfect for the slack barrels that were filled with flour, butter, sugar, and cheese. Elm wood is easily steam-bent and was used for the hoops for all kinds of barrels. The wood is almost white and imparts no taste, so it was preferred for a variety of domestic utensils, boxes, baskets, crates, iceboxes, washboards, and for the white, scrubbed kitchen table found in almost every farm kitchen. For a time, elm was the most sought-after tree on the market.
Now, thanks to Dutch elm disease, elms rarely reach a merchantable size, but neither is the market for barrels and washboards what it used to be. Small elms are still common along roadsides, because the two beetle species that carry the disease from tree to tree don’t find young elm bark suitable for egg-laying. They only move in when the bark begins to form fissures.
The skeletons of long-dead elms can still be found along the edges of old fields and pastures, though with the disease having been with us now for nearly three-quarters of a century, even these are now rotting away.
If you do come across an American elm, the leaves are oval and lopsided, with small teeth superimposed on larger teeth at the margins, and the veins seldom fork. The twigs are often decidedly zigzagged. If you break off a bit of bark, you will see alternating light and dark layers, remembered by many students as being like a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
Elm flowers appear early in spring, well before the leaves, and give a lovely light purplish color to the tree. The small, oval, winged fruits fall in late spring and usually germinate within a week or two. Millions of elm seeds do fall and do grow, and between these and the intense efforts of growers and researchers, it is possible to hope that Dutch elm disease can be circumvented somehow and that beautiful 100-foot, vase-like trees will someday arch again across the roads and yards of New England. Perhaps elms will even add stature to the deeds of man once again.