LONDON'S OAKS DYING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3371, 29 September 1931, Page 7

LONDON'S OAKS DYING

SPLIT AND HOLLOWED BY DISEASE. Many of the oak trees of Richmond Park —those trees which have seen a score or more of kings and queens of England pass—are dying, and nothing can now save them. Thirty of the trees have withered and been cut down this year. And there are hundreds more, thentrunks a mere shell with no heart left, which will soon share the same fate. They are now but pathetic decimated ghosts of their former splendid selves. Their trunks are split by the disease which has hollowed them out.

Never before has such a black plague spread death among the nobler trees of one of London's loveliest open spaces. And the blame for this calamity is put upon those who had these stately symbols of England in their care 60, 70 and 100 years ago, when the first signs of rot showed themselves, and might have been cured. Future generations, however, needn't worry, as from 100 to 200 new trees are being planted each year, many of them oaks. Between November and March there were planted about 150, and not one died.