Damage from the Gales
It is inevitable in any considerable gale that a number of elm trees crash, the only exceptions I can remember were in the years following the notorious hurricane of 1916, Which so utterly felled all weaklings that later gales were robbed of victims. That historic gale generally worked by pulling the roots out of the ground, for elms are like Noah's Ark figures and have no tap-root. These latest gales have crashed elms, in my neighbourhood (and paddock) by breaking them sheer off at some height from the ground, where, surprisingly, rot has set in though the lower part of the bole looks sound enough. The bark beetles (which are said to spread the elm disease) are particularly active, but there was no sign of this particular malady. It is to be hoped that the fallen trees, will become firewood ; but how lamentably seldom they are made any use of. Where they fall they lie, interminably. We are a wasteful people.' And there is more than wasteful untidiness in leaving fallen trees to rot. They nourish a number of harmful insects and undesirable fungi and inake it impossible to clear the ground of weeds. It is curious that the seeds of nettles appear to germinate with abnormal success in the defunct bark.
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