Description Oak trees in Britain are in dire trouble, and their prospects may well be bleaker than those faced by our elms, which have only weathered the ravages of Dutch Elm Disease because of their ability to reproduce by means of suckers, which are impervious to the disease until the saplings reach maturity. Two diseases are currently ravaging our oaks: Sudden Oak Death, a relative of the Potato Blight, which has already caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of oaks in California; and Acute Oak Decline, which the Independent has recently described as ?a new and little-understood pathogen, which causes trees to ?bleed? black fluid and kills them within five years.? (?Has a cure been found for Dutch Elm Disease??, Independent, 8.6.2010, p. 13.) Scientists researching these diseases complain that in our modern corporate society, they are woefully under-funded. During the Napoleonic Wars, the shanty ?Hearts of Oak? sustained the spirits of pressed seamen, and men o?war like the Bellerophon (?Billy Ruffian?, as the ship was colloquially known) were built almost exclusively from oak timber sourced in our ancient woodlands. Mediaeval peasants, hemmed in by royal prohibitions which prevented them from hunting deer for their own survival, exploited the seasonal bounty known as ?pannage?, fattening their pigs on acorns, and to this day, oaks are a defining feature of the English landscape. Readers wishing to explore the profound cultural contribution of the English Oak might like to start with the first chapter of David Cordingley?s masterful Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon ? The Biography of a Ship of the Line, 1782-1836, Bloomsbury, London, 2004. The ravages of Dutch Elm Disease are charted by Gerald Wilkinson, Epitaph for the Elm, Arrow, London, 1978. Poem by Giles Watson, 2010.
