The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1900-09-09
SICK TREES IN CITY HALL PARK.
In Central Park Unusual Measures Have Been
Required 10 Save Trees,

Many persons among the hundreds Of thou
sands who daily pass by City Hall Park have
noticed lately that many of the trees which
make that remnant Of New York's old common
land a place Of grateful approach In the hot
season have lost most or all OF their leaves
and appear TO be dead prematurely. There
are few dried leaves beneath them or ~clinging
in lonesome loyalty TO divergent branches.
Some Of the trees are denuded quite. Even
the bark in the dusty light of the September
sun seems choked and hardened. encasing a tree
mummined, Particularly Of the elms this is
true. Caterpillars have eaten the leaves OF the
horsechestnuts into skeletons.
Landscape Gardener Rose. In whose charge
the care OF the trees is placed, said at the arsenal
In Central Park yesterday that no trees In the
City Hall Park had died this year. On the con-
trary. he said. the department had succeeded
In keeping the trees there green more than a
month longer than last year. when the trees
began to lose their leaves and appearance Of
life at the beginning of August. The trees In
the City Hall Park, Mr.. Rose said. were naturally
going backward all the time. From timeto
time some of them died and were replaced by
new trees. The pavements, which draw so
much heat about the roots and prevent the
moisture from percolating 70 them. and es-
the soil about the City Hall Park, tend TO shorten
the lives Of the trees very materially and 10
HHkNH " 81 lltA TIC HfiNbi W = NINl
are able TO display green foliage Is short. They
will not flourish like strong trees IN tho country,
nor even as trees in the highly cultivated land
Of the Central Park may be made TO flourish.
Those in the City Hall Park had been made to
do as well as they had done by care and watering;
but il was impossible. MIR. Rose said. TO keep
them watered sufficiently In a season so I'M
usually hot and dry az this summer had been.
The summer was an unusually trying one, no
said.
The department. Mr.. Rose said. has only one
man to each six acres Of park land TO care for
trees. flowers, lawns and plantations. With
more men more could be ACCOMPLISHED. As IL
is, il had been necessary, he said. this year TO
take men from the lawns 70 care for the Central
Park trees, II was manifestly better to allow
the grass 10 grow long and the fallen leaves to
lie on il, even 10 permit the lawns and paths
10 remain temporarily Uttered thnn TO let trees
die which could not be replaced In. fifty years.
Yet some persons and newspapers had sharply
criticised the department for not cleaning up
the maths when the men had been called from
that work 10 save trees In and about Central
PARK II had been found necessary, Mr.. Rose
said, the season had been so hot and dry, to
dig up the soil around the double. line Of elms
on the Fifth avenue side OF Central Park and to
water all Of those trees, a work the extent Of
which may be realized by a glance at those
lines Of trees that shade the west side OF the
avenue. Even some Of those trees show bare
tops and rusty branches. but ms n lot they pre-
sent a welcome contrast TO the elms in'the
City Hall Park, where only the ailantus trees
which shoot their sturdy roots deep down
into the earth-remain green In this first week
OF September. In contrast to the arboreal
metropolis about them they seem 70 wear the
fresh, strong green Of early Juns, -