DYING TREES IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. 263 



certain crops take away certain constituents from the soil, 

 and that if this particular cropping continues without a 

 replacing of those particular constituents of fertility, the 

 soil must become barren in reference to the crop in ques- 

 tion, though other crops demanding different food may 

 ?t ill grow upon it. 



The agricultural vandalism that I have watched with so 

 much vexation is the practice of annually raking and 

 sweeping together the fallen leaves, collecting them in 

 barrows and carts, and then carrying them quite away from 

 the soil in which the trees are growing, or should grow. I 

 have inquired of the men thus employed whether they put 

 anything on the. ground to replace these leaves, and they 

 have not merely replied in the negative, but have been 

 evidently surprised at such a question being asked. What 

 is finally done with the leaves I do not know; they may be 

 used for the flower-beds or sold to outside florists. I have 

 seen a large heap accumulated near to the Round Pond. 



Now, the leaves of forest trees are just those portions 

 containing the largest proportion of ash; or, otherwise 

 stated, they do the most in exhausting the soil. In Epping 

 Forest, in the New Forest, and other forests where there 

 has been still more " terrible neglect of timely thinning," 

 the trees continue to grow vigorously, and have thus grown 

 for centuries; the leaves fall on the soil wherein the trees 

 grow, and thus continually return to it all they have taken 

 away. 



They do something besides this. During the winter" 

 they gradually decay. This decay is a process of slow com- 

 bustion, giving out just as much heat as though all the 

 leaves were gathered together and used as fuel for a bon- 

 fire; but the heat in the course of natural decay is gradually 

 given out just when and where it is wanted, and the coat- 

 ing of leaves, moreover, forms a protecting winter jacket 

 to the soil. 



I am aware that the plea for this sweeping-up of leaves 

 is the demand for tidiness; that people with thin shoes 

 might wet their feet if they walked through a stratum of 

 fallen leaves. The reply to this is that all reasonable de- 

 mands of this class would be satisfied by clearing the foot- 



