Some of the worst enemies of the gardener are the electric power-stations. The trees suffer terribly from the smoke they emit. Even healthy young shrubs and bushes, such as laurels, are destroyed by it. In a very short time they become completely dried up, brown, and shrivelled. In a memorandum on the Electric Power and Supply Bill of 1906, the First Commissioner of Works pointed out these disastrous effects. He says, "The case is not entirely one of the emission or consumption of black or sooty or tarry matters. The other products of combustion, such as sulphurous and sulphuric acid, with solid particles of mineral matter or ash, are very deleterious to vegetation." It appears from the report of Dr. Thorpe, of the Government Laboratory, that the production of sulphuric acid could be "much diminished, if not entirely prevented, by pouring lime-water on the coal before it goes into the furnaces, but from the look of trees in some neighbourhoods this precaution does not appear to be taken." These hindrances are often very disheartening, and the many and serious difficulties that have to be contended with, must never be lost sight of in any review of the parks.
