Evening star., 1936-07-07
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress i'm Field.
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The most intensive war ever waged
against an invisible invader now is
under way to save the elm-arched
streets of Eastern towns and villages.
1t has its pioneer companies, its AK
armed infantry of C. c. c. workers, its
air force. its field headquarters. its test
tube-filled laboratory. The tide of battle
now is turning in favor of this army.
Two years ago it seemed as though the
elms were doomed. A dreaded fungus
blight, the Dutch elm disease, somehow
had gotten into the country and prom
ised to leave only dead elms in its path,
just as a similar fungus a decade before
had destroyed the chestnuts from Quebec
to Georgia.
About the hardest foe to fight is
fungus, its spores carried by the wind
and by insects. The Department of
Agriculture accepted the challenge, how
ever, and the invisible enemy seems to
be on the retreat, or at least barely
holding the ground 1t has gained.
4NO years dSO uuInls CllC 4AoG t1ACC
weeks in June, according to Lee A.
Strong, chief of the Bureau of Ento-
mology and Plant Quarantine, 200 scouts
found 443 infected trees. This year the
defending army was increased seven
fold. But with more than 1,400 scouts
in the field only GOT trees were found
in which presence of the disease has been
established by laboratory tests.
But If the elmS are to be saved, DR..
Strong says, there can be no arrnistice.
The only practical way to fight the dis
ease is to destroy every sickly elm in the
areas where it occurs. At present the
infection is concentrated most heavily
around New York City, where 1t entered
the country and established its foothold
before the danger was recognized.
The chief carriers of the disease
spores, Bureau of Entomology experts
point out, are tiny beetles that breed In
dead or dying elns. They have spread
the malady through radius of so miles
in New York, New Jersey and Connec-
ticut. A few infected trees have been
found near two other ports of entry,
Baltimore and Norfolk. Some also have
been found along railroad tracks carry
ing infected elm logs and near cities
where veneer factories that use the logs
are located.
The first step in any successful eradi-
cation campaign, DR.. Strong points out,
is to find the infected trees. This search
now is going on by land and air. Scout
ing crews Scour woods, parks and road
sides on foot. An autogiro, recently
acquired by the Bureau Of Entomology,
slowly flies over marshes and over areas
difficult to scout on foot. The aerial
observer spots sickly trees and marks
them on a map so that the ground crew
can find and destroy them.
The army OF defense Is composed
largely of Civilian Conservation Corps
and w. P. A. workers. General field
headquarters are located at Bloomfield,
N. j. The army is divided into three
Notwithstanding, eradication and
sanitation crews-which follow each
other in the field. Samples of every
suspected tree are cultured at an Ento-
mology Bureau laboratory, where is sta
toned a corps of plant pathologists
capable of making 1000 cultures a day.
If NECESSARY.
The army" has three training camps
for its soldiers-each with constant
enrolment of 100. This is necessary be-
cause of the rapid personnel turnover
of the relief organizations from which
the ranks must be recruited. In New
Jersey l58 scouting crews now are at