HALIFAXFIELDNATURALISTSNEWSLETTERc/o Nova Scotia Museum OCTOBER - DECEMBER 19791747 Summer StreetHalifax. Nova ScotiaB3H 3A6

HALIFAXFIELDNATURALISTSNEWSLETTER

OCTOBER - DECEMBER 1979 NUMBER: 22

Meetings are held on the first Thursday of every month, at 8.00 p.~.

in the Auditorium on the ground level of the Nova ScotiaMuseum, 1747 Summer Street. Halifax.

Field Excursions are held at least once a month.

Membershi p is open to anyone interested in the natural history of NovaScotia. Membership is available at any meeting or by writingto - Membership, Halifax Field Naturalists, cIa the NovaScotia Museum. Individual membership is five dollars yearly;family membership is seven dollars. Members receive theNewsletter and note of all excursions and special programs.

Directors for 1979-BD:President .Vice-President .Membership SecretaryTreasurer0; rectors .. . . .

Newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joe HarveyAnne GreeneMarjorie WillisonPat Cunni nghamMike BurkeNancy Davi s·Erick GreeneLi nda Morri s

Anne GreeneMike BurkeDoris Butters

Mailing Address: Halifax Field Naturalistsc/o Nova Scotia Museum1747 Summer StreetHalifax, N. S.B3H 3A6

HFN is a member organization of the Canadian Nature Federation.

HFN is incorporated under the Nova Scotia Societies Act.

reportsI

HALIFAX CITY TREE SURVEYRESULTS -

At a meetin9 5 June 1979, HalifaxCity Council heard presentations from avariety of people on the subject of thespraying of the street trees of the citywith insecticide. The brief history ofthe subject ;s that the trees had beensprayed in early summer for a number ofyears using a large air-blast sprayerbut that this programme had been dis­continued a few years ago after somecitizens protested (see HFN NewsletterNo.18, Nov.-Dec., 1978). The June Councilmeeting was asked to consider the matteranew since City Field staff felt that bynot spraying there was a danger that thetrees would become weakened and a requesthad been put to Council to allow spray­ing to be carried out in 1979.

After hearing arguments from DavidPatriquin, Ken Neil and Susan Mayo (Susanrepresenting Ecology Action Centre)against the spraying and Mr. Ben Scallionrepresenting City Field staff in favour,Council voted against allowing sprayingin 1979, but asked that the DalhousieUniversity Biology Department conduct asurvey of the trees and report back inthe autumn. Well. winter succeededautumn and it was not until the Christmasbreak that time was found to write thisreport.

As a result of Counci1 1 s requestDavid Patriquin and myself decided thata complete survey of the City trees, un­financed, was beyond the scope of twopeople. but that this was just the sortof community natural history for whichHFN was founded. A sin91e page leafletwas hence sent out in the summer withthe usual flyer of events to over 200members. The leaflet contained a guideto the identification of the commonstreet trees and a table to score howmany of each specied on a street werehealthy (Class "A"). had some damage(Class IIB Il

) or were badly affected byinsects (Class IIC"). People wereasked to survey the trees on their streetor elsewhere and return the form.

A total of eleven people did so butthe great majority of the streetswere surveyed by either David Patriquinor myself.

RESULTS -

Thirty-nine streets or portions ofstreets were surveyed resulting in atotal of 2588 trees being scored. Anattempt was made to keep a balancebetween the North and South ends ofthe city and to include older neigh­bourhoods (e.9. Old South End) as wellas streets built in the last 30 years.The West of the city was not includedappreciably nor where the suburbs suchas Fairview or Spryfie1d. Had theselatter been included it might haveincreased the maple total somewhat.Oak Street, with solid oak plantin9 (anice idea) was deliberately omittedlest it over-emphasise the proportionof oaks in the city.

The Table of Results shows someinteresting figures and points out un­equivocab1y where the problem lies.

MAPLES -

Fifty per cent (50%) of all thetrees in the city are maples of onesort or another. However, of the fivemaples identified in the streets.norway maple makes up 47% of all trees.the remaining maples (sycamore. silver.sugar and red) constitute only 3% ofthe city trees. Of the total maples,95% were judged to be perfectly healthy

'C1ass A'. 4% showed some leaf damageand less than 1% were distinctly un­healthy (11 out of 1274). This showsthat the most abundant tree in thecity is norway maple and that it is avigorous and healthy species. Thepolicy of City Field staff over thepast 30 years of planting predominantlynorway maple is thus handsomely vindic­ated (there is. however. a provisolater) .

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TABLE OF RESULTS

Species No. and %in No. and %in No. and % in Total %'Class A' - 'Class B' - 'Class (' -

(healthy leaves) (some damage) (unhea lthy)

Norway map 1e 1163 (95.4 ) 46 (3.7 ) 10 (0.6 ) 1219 (47 )

SU9ar maple (1) 9 (90 ) 1 (10) 0 (0) 10 (0.4)

sn ver maple 22 (91.7) 1 (4.2) 1 (4.2) 24 (0.9)

-Sycamore maple 14 (93) 1 (6.7) 0 (0) 15 (0.6)

Red maple 5 (B3) 1 (16.7) 0 (0) 6 (0.2)

MAPLE totals 1213 (95.2) 50 (3.9) 11 (O.g) 1274 (49.2),,I

Elms 194 (24.2) 401 (50.0) 20B (26.0) B03 (31 .0)

Linden 2B5 (B5.1) 36 (lO.B) 14 (4.2) 335 (13.0)

Oak 36 (100.0) 0 0 36 (1 .4)

Mounta; nAsh 20 (45.5) lB (41.0) 6 (15.6) 44 (1.7)

Ash 11 (45.B) 10 (41. 7) 3 (12.5) 24 (0.9)

Horse ches tnut B (100.0) 0 0 8 (0.3),Hawthorne 13 (l00.0) 0 0 13 (0.5)

Paper birch 10 (41.7) 12 (50.0) 2 (8.3) 24 (0.9)

IPoplar 10 (52.6) 6 (31.6) 3 (15.8) 19 (0.7)

'Crab apple 4 (100.0) 0 0 4 (0.2)

Willow 3 (100.0) 0 0 3 (0.1 )

Pi ne 1 (100.0) 0 0 1 (0.04)II,ITotals 1808 (69.9) 533 (20.6) 247 (9.5) 2588

ELMS -The next most common group of

trees are the various species of elm,31% of all trees. Considering elmsalone. 50% were considered slightlydamaged, 26% heavily damaged and only24% reasonably healthy. That makes76% of elms in 'Classes B' plus 'e'with something wrong with the leaves(mainly elm leaf miner damage).

This year we were watching theelms closely and it became obviousthat different degrees of suscept­ibility to leaf miner were operating.In some streets trees with healthyleaves were growing adjacent totrees which looked very healthyindeed. It was obvious that thetrees differed in their resistanceto attack by leaf miner and that thiswas due to the elms belonging to adifferent species. It would be niceat this point to say which elmspecies were resistant and whichsusceptible but the elms in Halifaxare peculiarly difficult to identifybecause, being formerly betterconnected to Britain than to UpperCanada. we must have imported a greatdeal of nursery stock from Britain.

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This means that we probablyhave english elm, Ulmus procera;wych elm, Q.glabra and probably otherof the elms and hybrids grown inEurope in addition to our nativeUlmus americana. which is so charac­teristic of the richer soils alongstreams in our various valleys andin the agricultural towns of theMaritimes. These elms are dis­tinguished one from the other chieflyby characteristics of the fruits;whether they are round or oval,large or small, hairy or glabrous,with the seed central or to one side.The fruits are found only in earlysummer since elms flower before theleaves open and the fruit, whichlooks 1ike sma 11 rounded sca1esabout 1 em. diameter. is soon dropped.(Maybe some HFN member could make acollection in 1980).. The leafsurvey did not get underway untilthe fruit had been shed.

Ignorant as we are.about thespecies present it does seem likelythat the most susceptible one was theone with larger leaves than the rest;presumably wych elm. This is an elmwhich sets abundant fertile seed whichgerminate in neglected gardens andodd corners and provides most of theself-sown trees in the city. Particu­lar localities examined included somealong the railway on Beaufort Driveopposite the end of Regina, and on thebank by the sidewalk on Robie Streetbetween St. Francis and GorsebrookSchools. These saplings had a largeproportion of their leaves turned brownand crinkly by early surrmer. Incontrast, the planted elms in theboulevard on Robie in the same regionwere some of the more healthy lookingspecimens in the city and were obvious­ly different from the elms on SouthPark Street by the School for the Blindwhich were turned brown.

Recovery of the affected treeswas also recorded over the summer. Onattacked trees the initial branchletsbearing leaves put out in spring hadpractically all the leaves attackedby leaf miner and hollowed out, turningbrown and crinkly and causing theleaves to drop off. This is the stagewhich particularly upsets people and

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causes pressure on City Field person­nel to create a spray programme. Thebrown stage reaches its peak about theend of June.

Later in the summer these sametrees on Robie showed no 5;gn whateverof the attack. their leaves were greenand healthy. What had happened wasthat the apical bud had continuedgrowing, produced a second crop ofleaves which were not affected by leafminer larvae. Obviously the leaf minerstops breeding by midsummer but thetree continues grow;ng,producing whatare called lammas shoots. The resultis that the "unhealthyll elms put ona considerable branch extension despiteleaf miner attack. They did not seemparticularly weakened by the events.

LINDENS (BASSWOOD, LIME)-

Generally a healthy group with85% scoring as 'Class A' . .linden hasone attraction and one vice. Theattraction is that when they flower theygive off a delightful honey-fragrance,especially on warm, still summer even­ings. This is quite delightful to thosewho recognise it and is being appreci_

ated more and more now that automobilepollution is declining. The vice isthat they are host to the linden aphid(greenf1y) which sucks sap and excreteslarge quantities of honeydew. Thisfalls on the lower leaves turning themblack and on anything beneath thetrees, and is most noticeable onfreshly polished cars, to the chagrinof the owner. Honeydew is a sugarsolution which dries to give a stickydeposit of sugar.

One might be puzzled as to whyany animal should excrete sugar of allthings since sugar is the chief bio­logical currency of energy. Thepoint is that the linden aphid, likeall aphids, moves little and henceneeds little energy for this function.What the aphid requires is amino acidsfor growth and its abundant partheno->genetic production of offspring. Itsticks its stylet into a phloem vesselof the tree and obtains the weak sol­ution of sugar and amino acids syn-.thesised in the leaves. The aminoacids are in short supply so the aphidtakes in large quantities of sap,

extracts the amino acids and excretesmost of the water and sugar. Itliterally, pardon the expression,shi ts sugar.

REMAINING TREES -

The oaks seemed robustly healthybut only comprised 1.4% of total trees.The other trees are also in low per­centages although sometimes quiteconspicuous as in the case of mountainash (rowan) which produces white flowerclusters in spring and conspicuousheads of scarlet berries in autumn>The leaves of mountain ash are oftenattacked and stripped by mountain ashsawfly larvae. Despite this it doesnot seem to be particularly harmedbut contributes a cheerful crop ofberries year after year.

Ash had a high proportion ofbadly shaped trees with eaten leavesand seemed to be one of the leastsuccessful street trees. Poplar andbirch were also rated fairly low buttheir presence is usually accidentalresulting from their growing on theland before the boulevard or roadwas built.

CONCLUSIONS AND COMMENTS -

Apart from the elms we have a prettyhealthy set of city trees. It wouldbe exaggerating to call the situationa crisis. The whole debate is basic­ally a matter of a minor point ofaesthetics concerning a small proportionof the city trees with conspicuousbrown patches on their leaves. versusa feeling of unease that a few peoplehave about a mixture of chemicals beingblown about the streets. A chemicalmixture which moreover has been cert­ified as safe for use in these circum­stances by experts on chemicals. Thislatter point I would like to discussa little more since it ;s central tothe issue.

The chemicals used are given aclear bill of health by a Provincialofficer. 50 we can all feel safe.End of argument. Vote to spray.But ..... , the Province has no testingfacilities for long or short term test­ing of toxicity; these are too expensivefor a small province to maintain. TheProvincial person in charge of suchmatters gets his information from theFederal Government which has a~ agri­cultural advisory service which does acertain amount of testing, but not muchand in ways one can argue with. Inturn the Federal advisors rely for alot of their advice on toxicity onpublished information coming from theU.S.A. and a great deal of that comesfrom the chemical companies who manu­facture insecticides and, quite rightly,have to prove that their product issafe.

Toxicity tests are complex andexpensive but involve at the minimumgiving doses of the chemicals inquestion to animals to determine theacute toxicity (how much will kill ina few days or weeks). What is reallydifficult, expensive and controversialis determining the long-term effect ofminute doses because this involveslarge numbers of animals over long .periods of time. Laboratory miceare one animal used and even they canlive to be a couple of years old.The results of these experiments thenhave to be extrapolated to humans, anarguable exercise.

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In effect, what the City Fieldstaff are saying, although they don'tknow it, is, 'let us give the citizensof Halifax a minute dose of insecticideeach year and see what happens overthe next twenty or more years'.Although this puts the situation ratherstarkly, it is the crux of my personalobjection to the spray prograrrune.

This exercise has pinpointed elms,some elms, as the problem trees. Ifspraying is to be permitted then itshould be confined to elms. The ideaof the therapeutic value of sprayingevery tree in every street just incase it might be harbouring somethingis not really defensible.FUTURE DISEASES -

It seems that about every 20-30years some major tree pest is intro­duced to North America. Chestnut

blight from E. Asia literally wipedout the sweet chestnut forests of E.U.S.A., beech canker insects aredebilitating the beech trees (Halifaxseems to have the dubious honour ofbeing the centre for introduction ofthis European pest), gypsy moth wasintroduced but valiant efforts seem tohave wiped it out, and, most recently,a vigorous and virulent mut~nt of thedutch elm disease has been 1ntroducedto North America and has finally reachedNova Scotia.

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The brief presented by EcologyAction Centre to Council in June dweltfairly extensively with dutch elmdisease. At the time this was a bitof a red herring since the spray pro­gramme was primarily being activatedto deal with a very different pest.elm leaf miner. only coincidentallyconfined to elms. However, it isobvious that dutch elm disease is thenext di sease whi ch wi 11 arri ve ; n theci ty.

It should be clear by now thatchemical treatments cannot stop dutchelm disease, thousands of towns inNorth America and Europe have triedand failed. Halifax might be differentbut I doubt it. The best sloWing-downprocedure seems to be to cut a treedown as soon as it shows the least signof the symptoms (leaves on a branchsuddenly dying simultaneously whilethe rest of the tree remains green.this is quite distinct from leaf miner).Branches must be burnt to kill thebeetle larvae which would otherwisespread the disease (a fungus). Trunksmay be used for lumber provided thebark is stripped off. It is a tragedythat millions of elm trees are eitherbeing burnt or left to rot when thewood could be used for furniture andother purposes for which hardwood isused. After all they represent the lastcrop of elm trees ever to be taken inNorth America and we are wasting it.Another comment that could be made isthat dutch elm disease may be the 'cLlre 'for elm leaf miner; homoeopathy witha vengeance!

When it does take hold dutch elmdisease is going to leave gaps incertain areas of the city but we shallnot suffer as much as those cities whichhad elm as their major tree. We arefortunate to have a mixture of speciesplanted in the city.

Some other insect pests have acyclical trend in their occurrence;Virtually none for a few years. anincrease. a peak and a decline innumbers. The fall webworm is one suchspecies which has cycled on and offin the city for many years. It attacksalmost any tree. At the moment we havejust passed through the low part of thecycle for webworm and with the cyclebeing about ten years we can expect anincrease in webworm activity over

roughly the next five years. Duringthe last peak some of my neighboursgot quite worried by the appearance ofthe 'tents' of these colonial cater­pillars and concerned at the 'damage'that they were doing to the trees. Oneneighbour in particular got a longpole, tied a kerosene soaked rag tothe end. lit it and went round burningthe webs. I told him it did not damagethe tree to have a few leaves eatenoff since the twig and buds are untouchedbut that by burning the branches hewas causing their death. Well, heenjoyed doing it and obviously feltlike a hero 'saVing' the trees, butsometimes inaction is better than action.

How then does one defeat an infect­ion of fall webworm? The answer isthat you wait, and it goes away, Thereis an inbuilt and invisible controlmechanism consisting of a number ofinsect and fungal parasites which com­bine to cause a decline in the webwormpopulation.

Any parasite-controlled system issensitive to outside influence andseveral cases are recorded of what Icall the 'Ecological PerversityPrinciple' which results from this.Perversity principles are a slightlymore scientifically based form ofMu~phyrs Law and cover those situ­at10ns where you do something inorder to produce a certain result,and exactly the opposite happens.The examples in mind are cases wherechemical sprays have been used toeliminate a particular insect pestresulting in the next Season in anincreased population of the insectthus necessitating more sprayingand so on.

The mechanism is that insectnumbe~s are ~onmally controlled byparaS1tes Wh1Ch are present in quite~ow numbers. Spraying kills the1nsect you don't like but also hasthe invisible effect of wiping out~he parasites which unfortunatelyln many cases seem to be ratherdelicate things. The result is thatnext season the original insect youwanted to eliminate can grow freelyuncontrolled by its natural set ofparasites. How would I control thenext outbreak of fall webworm? AsI said, taking account of theirnatural parasites and the Ecological

Perversity Principle. I would justleave them alone and they will goaway.

FUTURE TREES -Obviously from the foregoing.

elm is not going to be planted anymore. The best tree we have isnorway maple which already dominatesthe city and should probably remainat the heart of any planning programme.Equally obvious is that heavy relianceon a single species will invite afuture disaster. I shudder to thinkof the effects of a serious mapledisease.

In the past some streets wereplanted with two species alternating.Lucknow and Beech are examples sur­veyed where elm and linden alternateand hence, when dutch elm diseasearrives these streets will be littleaffected since the trees are alreadya little too close.

Future policy should be to plantseveral species alternating along thestreets. Already more linden is beingplanted and alternations involvinglinden, norway maple and oak wouldseem to be one obvious approach.Some experimenting is obviously go­ing on since I notice a variety oftrees including one of my favourites,Ginkgo, being tried out along ConnaughtAvenue boulevard.

Why is norway maple the favouritetree? Most reasons have already beenmentioned: rapid healthy growth inour climate, winter hardiness. lack ofparasites, fairly cheap to grow,transplants well. Is it therefore theideal tree? No, it isn't. It getstoo big and it doesn't blossom (yes Iknow it has flowers but they are yellow­green). Tree choice is in fact influencedby one overwhelming factor - vandalism.Norway maple is a strong grower andsoon gets above the size at which itcan be snapped off. Readers may havenoticed the repeated attempts over

the past few years to establish treesin downtown Halifax, I have beenparticularly observing Argyle andGrafton Streets. These attempts havebeen practically l00~ frustrated byvandalism.

Norway maple has also sufferedfrom an old gardening adage; "Whenyou plant a tree cut out the leadingshoot to make the head bush out".We were all taught this and yet inthe case of norway maple it has hadan adverse effect in that many ofthe city trees have a fork or clusterof branches just above head height.This forking creates a weak spotinto which water and fungus canpenetrate and where splitting takesplace when we have an ice storm orheavy snowfall such as happened inthe 'October snowstorm' of a few yearsago when the heavy snow stuck tothe leaves and split many treeswith the weight.

BLOSSOM TREES -Are there any blossom trees

which are vigorous, cheap andvandal-proof.? Unfortunately not.The flowering cherries which do sowell in parts of the USA and Japanare not quite hardy here.They grow to medium size and thensicken with Verticillium wilt. Therosybloom crabs are the Canadianreplacement for cherries and arespectacularly beautiful when inflower. Their fault is that theytend to bush out too low down evenwhen grown as a standard and arenot tall enough or strong enoughfor street edge planting. However,for boulevards and parks they areexcellent and should be planted morethan they have been. Some of our parkelms could be replaced with flower­ing crabs although they are muchsmaller.

Sunburst locust is not a bloomtree but its bright yellow leavesin spring give the impression offlowers and it turns yellow againin the autum before the leavesliterally disintegrate into tinyleaflets so that there is no sweepingto do. It would make an almost idealstreet tree if it were cheaper andfast enough growing to replace themaple-linden-oak triumvirate.

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Sunburst locust is useful for parksand boulevards and of course homegardens.

Double pink and red hawthornssuffer similar disadvantages. (theyare beautiful but slow-growing).Mountain ash is used very effectivelyin several places in the city andthe scarlet berries are alwaysnoticed. The leaf stripping sawflylarvae does not seem to stop themblooming and fruiting and the berriesoutweight the stripping. Again it isa small tree barely reaching to athird the height of a norway mapleof the same age.

When it comes to breeding newforms of street trees attention willhave to be given to a whole complexof species and hybrids between themany mountain ashes and whitebeamsof the world. Some of them are morevigorous than mountain ash and, beingvery hardy, should be useful as aslightly smaller street tree thannorway maple for Halifax. Unfortu­nately research on trees such asthis has hardly begun. I saw somefine whitebeams growing vigorouslyin the trial garden at Wisley inEngland and thought how nice theywould look in Halifax.

Dave Patriquin and I would liketo thank our helpers: John Coates.Christopher and Christina Corket,Stephen Fry, Maud Godfrey, Edwardand Charlotte Lindgren, Linda Marks.Bernice Moores. Ardith Parker andMartin Willison.

M.J. Harvey.

book

review

EXPLORING NOVA SCOTIA, Lance Feild,East Wood Press ($6.95 US)

It is difficult to know where tobe9in a review of Mr. Feild's book. Theconcept is good but the execution leavemuch to be desired. The first third idevoted to provi di ng a vari ety of back­ground information, the majority of theremainder to trail descriptions.

The background material presentedis a hodge-podge of facts with a sprinkling of errors and contradictions. Themisplaced emphasis present in almost althe sections gives a distorted view ofthe provi nce.

For example, contrary to Mr. Feildgrapes do not grow wild in the provincepeaches are not common. nor are thereany caribou. The mention of grizzliesis inappropriate as there are none inthe province. On summer hikes bathingsuits and shorts would be appropriatebut the parka could be omitted.

Unfortunately. Mr. Feild's description of the trails leave even more tobe desired. Mr. Feild has decided touse rough and sometimes very inaccuratesketches in place of reproduction ofactual maps. Often his descriptionsare not detailed enough to allow oneto find a trail without a good map.Further. he has indicated bus serviceto a number of places that have none.Two situations where his descriptionsare improper follow:

The Lake of Islands Trail (in CapeBreton Highlands National Park) isusually driven for the first 8 miles(leaving two miles to walk) and is thusdesignated for day use. Mr. Feild'sproposed use of the trail for overnightsconflicts with park regulations.Similarly his camping area at PollettCove ;s rrivate property and should notbe llsed for camping without permission.Oversights such as these may cause badfeelings towards hikers in general andcould possibly get the individual intotrouble.

Considering the numerous errors andbasic inaccuracies, and considering alsothe other hiking trail books which havelong been available, Exploring NovaScotia falls far short of making NovaScotia "at last available to the hikerand backpacker".

Colin Stewart.

Additional Note:

The majority of trails inExploring Nova Scotia also appear inThe Canadian Hosteling Association'sHiking Trails of Nova Scotia or inOEVCO's Walk Cape Breton. Both of theseare available through bookstores andsome camping supply stores. Bothnational parks have pamphlets whichcontain information on hiking trails.

Contact the parks or the regionaloffice (Historic Properties, Halifax)for these.

editorial- THE 80's

Not since the 40's have I seensuch pessimism in the New Year pre­dictions. At least in 1940, eventhough there was a war on, people hada definite purpose, a job to do, evenif the outlook was grim - as itturned out to be. In 1950 there wasrebuilding, an increased standard ofliving, the hope that some day thefamily could buy a car and get oneof those things you had hitherto onlyseen in stores (T.V.sets). The ColdWar was a worry to people with strongmemories of the 1939-45 war but thingsimproved.

By 1960 we had kept nuclear warat bay, prosperity increased albeitwith ups and downs of the businesscycle. Then a few scientists startedto get worried by the populationincrease and the rate of use of rawmaterials, energy and food, but sincethis has been endemic to scientistsfor over a century no one took anynotice. We now had two-car familiesand bicycles had gone the way of thehorse-drawn carriage.

By 1970 we had a whole generationof young folk brought up without globalwar. True. there was the VietnameseWar but for the average North Americanthis was the first war which madeabsolutely no difference to the standardof living of the ordinary citizen.Countries such as Vietnam and Cambodiawere devastated without feeling theslightest pinch in the living standardsin North America, Europe or Japan.I always felt that there was somethingimmoral in this.

But the 60 l s and 70's were differ­ent. Young people were beginning toreject the value systems of theirparents. The parents, growing up inthe 20's, 30's and 40 l s had worriesabout the economic cycle. 1962 hadseen the publication of Rachael Carson's'Silent Spring' and the children ofthese parents started worrying aboutthe ecological cycle. Both expressionscome from the same Greek root, oikos.

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The agitations of the ecofreaksof the early 60's gradually worked itsway down and started to interest theordinary citizen. Hence the latterpart of the 60's and the majority ofthe 70's saw a great upsurge in interestin what came to be known as environmentalaffairs. This interest was in partbrought about by the very success ofthe economy during the past fewdecades. The cars that clogged andpolluted the streets in the biggercities (we now started to get three-car families) and the TV sets that hadby now become universal and were usedby business to stimulate demand forgoods, were the product of unprecede­dented affluence. The idea of somescientists (always fringe members ofour society) about the environment andin particular pollution. came to benoticed by sufficient members of thepublic that politicians got interestedand environmental legislation startedto hit the statute books. There werevotes on environmental issues!Bicycles returned to the streets.People started to be interested intheir personal fitness.

Now we are entering the 80's*.The western world is in a period ofpessimism. the economic outlook iscloudy but almost certainly bad.People are becoming introspectiveand in the face of the current trendto conservatism are starting to regardas hopeless standing up for valueswhich just a few years ago they ,would have been pushing for. Youngpeople are seen but not heard. Fromacross the country comes hints of adeclining interest in environmentalaffairs. including lessened activityin many natural history societies.We have hints of this in Nova Scotia.Compare the very vigorous andsuccessful campaign in the mid-70'swhich was organised from Cape Bretonto persuade the government not topermit the spraying of the forestsfor spruce budworm. with the attemptin 1979 by HFN to get the membershipto report on the health of the treesin their own street because of acity proposal to spray the trees(and hence the citizens). Not including

the two organisers, nine replieswere received out of over 200survey forms sent out,a rate of lessthan 5% returned. This may be apoor example but I feel it is partof the change in attitude which hasoccurred over the past five-yearperiod. Maybe HFN members are notinterested in this type of subject.in which case the current executiveshould be displaced by people moreattuned to the wishes of the members.The group was after all founded toinvolve people actively with the out­doors and was deliberately not meantto be merely an entertainment societyshowing pretty pictures of flowers orfurry animals.

Over the same five-year timeperiod the promises of a ProvincialLiberal Government to enact legislationenabling the setting·up of EcologicalReserves were shelved when they cameunder pressure and the ConservativeGovernment which displaced them hasshown no signs of reviving theproposal. Without pressure fromcitizens such legislation will neverbe enacted. It looks 1ike we willall retreat into an apathetic statein the 80's - let's all become TVmorons. The attitude is that theindividual is powerless in the modernworld and after a"~the things whichbenefit Big Business. real estatedevelopers and international conglom­erates are bound to benefit the averagecitizen: well - aren't they?

This is a pessimistic picture Ihave proposed. There is one ray ofhope. Whenever I have predictedanything or voted for a government,the opposite has happened. Let'shope that the same happens here. butit does mean that citizen participationwill have to be strong.

M.J. Harvey.Incidentally, not the start of anew decade. My extensive educationin mathematics and religion informsme that the Christian calendarstarted at year 1 A.D., a mistakeno doubt. but a little hard tocorrect after all these years.Since a decade ;s a period of 10years, the first decade was from1 to 11 A.D. Hence the next decadewill begin in 19S1.