Coming in from the fields

摘要

If fewer young people are out there getting their hands dirty in the quest for knowledge, does that mean naturalists are a dying breed? If you enjoy a game of conkers or just like collecting these aesthetically satisfying seeds of the horse chestnuttree, be grateful to Marian Comfort, a resident, of Wimbledon in South-west London. Last summer, Mrs Comfort noticed that her conker tree's leaves were turning brown, and so she contacted plant pathologists at the Royal Horticultural Society, who in turnalerted the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. And not a moment too soon, for the leaves were infested with the horse chestnut leaf miner Cameraria obridella, a moth that has already devastated the species across Europe. If it were to spread throughout the British Isles, the consequences for conker players are too awful to contemplate. Mrs Comfort has received a personal letter of thanks from Elliot Morley, the government minister responsible for forestry.