© 1957 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
APPROACH AND PERSPECTIVE IN FOREST PATHOLOGY
The author reviews briefly the lines along which forest pathology has developed from its emergence as a separate science up to the point now reached, where the influence of environment on the tree is too generally regarded as of greater importance than the actual pathogen attacking it. He would correct a major assumption, made by this school of thought, that the ‘natural’ forest necessarily provides the ideal environment, and that therefore any departure from nature, e.g. the use of pure stands or the planting of exotics is bound to encourage disease. He considers that forest diseases are mostly complexes, in each of which site and pathogen play very variable roles of differing importance. Any attempts at this stage to draw broad conclusions covering a large number of diseases are certain to lead to error. He suggests that, as producers of trees on a limited range of sites, and not as preservers of nature, we must avoid behaving as though ‘unnatural’ was the same thing as ‘unhealthy’.