IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 233, 3 October 1933, Page 6

IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

TREES IN THE CITY,

PLEA FOR PRESERVATION.

(To tlie Editor.)

It was with great joy and thankfulness that I read of the Governor-General's work in encouraging tree planting and the love of trees for how badly needed are a few trees to relieve the drah monotony of our suburban streets! However, it is not the planting of trees, but the cutting down thereof that I wish to speak of. Here is a case in point: A suburban street which I sometimes visit was once graced by two tall blue gums which stood in some waste ground on the brow of a hill Kindly old fellows, they cast a pool of grateful shade on hot summer's days, whilst all the year round birds sang in their branches and the wind rustling their leafy boughs made restful music for all who had ears to hear But, alas, although it is hard to believe that any decent human being can be blind to the grace and beauty of trees, there appear to be a number of people in Auckland to-day who take pleasure in dropping down every tree they can, and the two beautiful blue"ums have been chopped down. Gone is their leafy shade and rustling music, leaving a bare city street. I understand they were'given to a relief worker to sell for firewood or some such purpose. Now, all my sympathies are with the unemployed, and I am not blaming them but surely the local bodies or whoever is responsible could provide firewood from some plantation or thicket from which a few trees would not be missed. It cannot be necessary to remove two solitary trees from a suburban street, robbing it of its only beauty. Even if two more trees were planted there immediately it would be years before they could replace those two tall bluegums. I often wonder how many New Zaalanders have read and loved the following verse:

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree ; Poems are made by fools like me. But only God can mak-e a tree.

I think those are tho words, and with them I will close, for they say far more than I can ever express. THEE LOVER.