EXPULSION OF THE BOOKS 81 



Not far from London is a tree which Aubrey 

 described as v^y old in his day, and which has 

 been dying since the early years of this century, 

 but it is not dead yet, and it may live to be 

 admired by tliou sands of pilgrims down to the 

 end of the twentieth century. In any case, 

 trees are too precious in London to be removed 

 because they are unsound. But the truth was, 

 those in Kensington Gardens were not dying 

 and not decayed. The very fact that they 

 were chosen year after year by the rooks to 

 build upon afforded the strongest evidence 

 that they were the healthiest trees in the 

 gardens. When they were felled a majority of 

 them were found to be perfectly sound. I 

 examined many of the finest boles, seventy and 

 eighty feet long, and could detect no rotten spot 

 in them, nor at the roots. 



The only reasons I have been able to discover 

 as having been given for the destruction were 

 that grass could not be made to grow so as to 

 form a turf in the deep shade of the grove ; that 

 in wet weather, particularly during the fall of 

 the leaf, the ground was always sloppy and 

 dirty under the trees, so that no person could 



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