There is a sharper irony here for this stretch of country. For almost a century, white ash along the NY-PA border supplied nearly all MLB bats; the Louisville Slugger forest was here. The crack of the bat was literally the sound of these hills. That is ending too.
Its larvae burrow beneath the bark and feed on the layer just beneath it, severing the tree's circulation. An infested ash tree is generally dead within two to four years. The beetle is the endgame, and nationwide projections for ash die-off by 2050 run into the billions.