Elm trees

“What’s the elm bark beetle?” he asked.

“A bug that spreads Dutch Elm Disease on our elm trees,” I said.

“Is the disease what makes the elms stink?” he asked.

“No” I said, “that’s just the way elm trees smell.”

“It really bothers me,” he said, “to walk around town trying to admire the elms, but having to smell the rancid trees.”

“It bothers me too,” I said.

“Why did people in the old days plant them if they stink?”

“You have to remember,” I said, “that in the old days there were horses. People probably couldn’t smell the elms because of the horses.

“Elms have always been a troublesome tree. You can’t plant anything under them because of their shallow roots. They split easy in the wind too. In the 1930s a lot of elms fell in storms because many of the lower branches had been cut. The trees were in saturatred soil because of rain. When gales came the trees had no lower branches to counter the force of the wind against the rest of the tree.

“But the biggest problem with elms is the fungus and the beetle that spreads it. The fungus gets into holes in the tree, then spreads into the vascular system of the plant. This can happen without the beetle.

“The beetle speeds the process. It feeds on the bark of living and growing trees. In winter when elms are dormant, the beetles leave the healthy trees to nest in dead or dying elms.”

“Why don”t they just stay in the healthy trees in winter instead of moving to the dead trees?” he interrupted. “Neither of them have sap.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I do know that after the male and female beetles breed, the female burrows under the bark to lay her eggs. She does not realize she burrows the eggs in the fungus of a diseased tree. When the eggs hatch, spores of the fungus stick to the young beetles, then stay on them as adults when they travel to healthy trees to eat in the spring and summer. The beetles wound a tree when they eat its bark. If they eat the inner bark, a hole is open for spores to spread from the inner bark through the cambium and into the sapwood. The sapwood carries food and water from roots to the rest of the tree. The spores turn into the fungus. The fungus blocks the flow of water through a tree, then the tree begins to die.”

“At least you can use it for firewood,” he said.

“Only if the bark is removed. Otherwise the beetles hang around the wood pile to spread,” I replied. “We don’t want to be cutting trees down, even though we have to. Did you know that in the old days there were big battles between people who wanted to cut trees and people who wanted to save them and plant more?”

“No,” he said.

“Back in 1913 blocks had thirty-two street trees on them. A lot of business owners cut trees because the trees made the sidewalk dirty and slippery and blocked the lights from the street lamp. The battles between business owners and those who wanted to save the trees go back to about 1900.”

“But weren’t the streets and sidewalks dirty from horses?” he asked. “The leaves are only slippery in November and December, then they are raked up.”

“Well,” I said. “In 1913 Parks Superintendent H. A. Alspach was given a car to do his job because the city was getting too big to cover in a horse and buggy. You’ve got to figure by 1920 horses and buggies were gone. Maybe the business owners felt that since the streets weren’t dirty from horses anymore, it made sense to get rid of the trees so the leaves wouldn’t be a bother.

“It was a tough time for trees at the beginning of the century. They suddenly had concrete and asphalt over their roots and electric wires passing through their branches, not to mention the threat of being cut down as a nuisance that they always faced.

“Superintendent Alspach was ordered to pollard trees that had been butchered when power lines were installed over them. Apparently people really did butcher trees in those days, kind of like the way they destroy mulberries today.”

“But they survived,” he said.

“Obviously they would not all be cut down,” I said. “When the pioneers came in 1848 and the years after that, they destoyed most of the native oaks and sycamores within a mile of the river in Old Town. But like I say, they aren’t all going to be destroyed. There was a native sycamore that was in the county jail yard until 1909. It was cut to make room for the County Court House. It was five feet in diameter. I bet a lot of prisoners looked forward to seeing the grand old tree when they made another trip to jail. They probably told their friends and family about it.

“A big reason more trees were not cut in the first two decades of the century is because people appreciated the legacy of trees that was theirs from the plantings between 1850 and 1880. It is similar to the struggles of the 1930s to preserve trees planted in the 1880s and 1890s.

“During the twenties there was rigourous enforcement of laws against cutting trees without a permit. The punishment was up to one hundred dollars and thirty days in jail. The City had a Street Tree Warden to enforce the laws.

“One time the City did not know whether to prosecute a homeowner or the partners he hired to put a driveway in at the house he was having built. The contractors cut down one of the sycamores the City had planted as part of the City beautification process. The homeowner and the two contractors said cutting the tree was not their fault. The warden and other City officials did not believe any of their stories, so the City prosecuted all three of them. They were released on fifty dollars bail. They asked for a jury trial because they claimed they did not know about the permit requirement.”

I stopped.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I wasn’t able to find out,” I said. “The stories in the paper kept getting shorter and shorter. Maybe by the time the jury reached the verdict the paper had lost interest or decided the defendants had received enough bad press, so that as long as they were given some kind of legal punishment, justice was served.

“In the thirties there seemed to be a lot more removals though, as more trees got old and more automobile related needs came up like gas stations and garages. The City was willing to allow a property owner to cut a palm tree, even if it was healthy, because the park superintendent considered palms to be undesireable street trees.

“There was a war of words in one of the local papers whenever the City allowed another tree to be removed. But the City was planting tons of trees.

“In 1926 between C and I east of 15th, the City planted new trees in the large gaps between old trees. When it planted trees each year, it planted one in front of every occupied property, then expected the occupant or owner to maintain the tree.

“In 1928 the City planted fifteen hundred trees. A thousand in 1930. Throughout the thirties the City planted trees. It put trees in new subdivisions to attract buyers to Sacramento.

“Private groups planted trees too. The Eagles planted a thousand trees a year for ten years.

Ïn 1935, Park Superintendent F. N. Evans said the City had fifty thousand trees in our parks and on our streets. That’s a thousand trees a year since 1875. Figure trees need ten years before they provide shade. Of course the City did not plant all of them, but it took the lead in the twenties.”

“So the beetle hadn’t really begun to take effect yet?” he asked.

“Not for fifty years,” I told him. “The problem back then was the leaf beetle not the bark beetle. It started in 1924. It got to other parts of the state in 1922. It was even worse in Fresno. One year four thousand trees were infected here. The City sprayed for it as best it could each year. One season the City made over thirty thousand applications.

“The problem was that the defense the City made against the leaf beetle by spraying trees on City property gradually lost ground. Beetles from trees on private property re-infested City trees. Either the public did not know or care about the beetle in their private trees. So we had a few tree cutting controversies, massive plantings every year and a disease prevention program.

“The prevention program was dramatic. The City covered people’s houses with canvas so the oil and lead used to spray the leaf beetle and scale would not get on people’s brick or paint or windows.

“A lot happened before the bark beetle came. After the big storm of 1938 blew over hundreds of trees and caused a lot of property damage, people started to complain that the trees were too big. The big trees broke up concrete and kept the sun out of people’s houses. The glory days were ending, though we only know from looking back. In 1941 the City adopted the camellia as the City flower. In 1943 we officially became The Camellia City.

“We kept planting trees, but by the mid-forties the percentage of the City budget marked for trees decreased. In the fifties and sixties new subdivisions were not planted with trees as much and the City did not plant as many varieties of species.”

“It sounds like we were losing our imagination,” he said.

“I agree,” I told him. “The City had all these beautiful trees. Everybody had plenty of money. Between the depression and the war, our desire to be risk free increased. Put the fear of communism on top of the other two and you can see why our imaginations died. It’s too bad. We had the trees the old timers planted for us and the leisure and money they did not have.

“With air-conditioners we did not need trees as much for shade, even though trees helped to reduce the bill. We could have sat out in the morning and evening to admire trees for their shape and sensuality, to see in the trees the life and motion the Indians saw.

“It was time to make a leap of imagination, but we failed to take it. We spent weekend mornings operating a lawn mower. We spent late afternoons and early evenings wondering what we’d watch tonight, or where we were going to drive to see the stars perform.

“There must have been a few people who noticed the trees through the screen door as they turned away from the TV when a commercial came on. The shininess of an alder’s bark or the fissures of the bark of an American Elm might have pricked their curiosity, making them want to rub their hand along the trunk or run their fingers in the fissures. But they were afraid to get up.”

“What about the bark beetle?” he asked.

“I’m not there yet,” I told him. “One of the interesting things about not planting trees in the new subdivisions is that people could see the mountains every day. Their kids would have the same unchanging view of the mountains. It could have been a way to find peace and permanence in a world of incessant change.

“People in the suburbs rejected the view of the mountains like the people in town lost interest in the trees. They kept driving to the mountains to see trees while they polluted the air so they could not see the mountains without driving there even if they wanted to.

“Then in the 1970s leaf blowers became popular. They destroyed autumn, the time of year when even people who are not interested in nature sit in the sun watching the shadows, or on the porch in the rain watching leaves get forced from the tree. The time of year which gets people out more has more days with leaf blowers, driving us inside.

“There’s always going to be people interested in trees. In the 1980s when the elms in the old part of town were getting old and the elm leaf beetle was on the attack, people realized what we have and what we are losing. In 1982 people organized the Sacramento Tree Foundation to plant and preserve trees.

“With the foundation expanding, the elm bark beetle came to town in September of 1990. But the elms are so old it’s a losing battle. If the bark beetles and leaf beetles don’t kill the trees, old age will. The City’s budget doesn’t help. Trees receive only a fraction of one percent of the City’s budget.”

“People are planting trees though,” he said. “So I guess we’ll be okay?”

“Well, as far as numbers of trees and an educated public we will be. Once in a while the City gets State money to plant trees. That’s good too. But the lack of imagination is still there.

“We aren’t planting trees that grow huge like the elms did. We are the City of Trees because of huge elms and sycamores, not zelkovas and ash, though there is a beautiful ash on 7th near Capitol Mall. If we plant trees that grow as tall as the old ones, we will retain our reputation.”

“Didn’t somebody have a funeral for one of the elms in Midtown?” he asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask? It was a wake for the first tree of the year to die of Dutch Elm Disease.”

“That sounds imaginative to me.”

“It is. We need more though,” I told him. “The next step would be to pray to trees, to sing to trees, to have christenings, and marriages and fertility dances under trees. Imagine a parade for miles in town every Spring and Fall where we walk for a mile in silence, then chant or sing a tree song for the next mile.

“We appreciate what trees do for our image as a city. We’re planting trees to cut utility bills. Some people say trees in and around the parking lot keep gas from evaporating on hot days. We know trees are good for the air. They help prevcent erosion. Common sense tells us shade trees reduce people’s irritability.

“Trees are pretty and we like that.

“We have all seen aboriginal art where trees are depicted as muscular and sexual. Science has revealed trees have auras. Knowing that lends credibility to cultures that worshipped trees.

“We have knowledge that wasn’t disseminated in the 1950s and 1960s. I don’t expect us to make trees objects of worship, but we can begin to lust over their power, their form and their sensuality.

“We are at a turning point in our relationship with trees. We can stay in our cars and at our computers, grateful for the convenience of trees to provide us with shade and prettiness; or we can allow trees to be more meaningful to us than our cars and our computers – things we can’t be around enough, like we can’t be in our car or at our computer enough now.

“I am certain we will fail to lust over trees. I am certain we will fail to dream big and plant huge trees for ourselves, our kids and people who live here after us.”

“So the elm bark beetle isn’t that big of a deal?” he asked.

“In the overall scheme of things it isn’t,” I said. “It is to me because it keeps us focusing on the trees we are going to lose even if we treat them, rather than getting all revved up to plant Valley Oaks, Cottonwoods, Poplars, Deodar Cedars, Italian Stone Pines and Eucalyptus.

“It’s sad to lose the elms. It’s sadder to think we are thrilled to plant medium size trees.”

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko