PRUNING DISEASED TREES 63 



country, but the system is by no means so 

 often adopted as the results would warrant. 

 The old Spanish chestnut trees in Greenwich 

 Park, the oaks at Richmond, or the elms in 

 Kensington Gardens and Regent's Park are 

 excellent object-lessons of how diseased and 

 dangerous trees may be rejuvenated for a time 

 at least by a well-ordered system of pruning. 

 Sixteen years ago, the Spanish chestnuts in 

 Greenwich Park were in a deplorable and 

 dangerous condition, there being hardly a tree 

 without quantities of dead and dying wood, 

 mainly owing to the age of the trees, and 

 want of attention when accident befel them, 

 as also the light, gravelly soil on which they 

 are growing. 



When it is stated that nearly four hundred 

 cartloads of dead wood were removed from 

 these trees during two consecutive winters, 

 some idea of the appearance they presented 

 before pruning operations were commenced 

 may be imagined. As might be expected, 

 many, indeed the majority, of these trees were 

 infested by the wood leopard moth (Zeuzera 

 cesculi], the ravages of this boring insect having 



