You can no more own a tree

than hold the deed to a river or engrave your name upon a cloud.

Many years ago, when Peachtree

City was young and so were we, a friend called, dismayed over what was

happening at the house behind hers. A new neighbor had just moved in,

and was cutting down trees on what had been a large, densely treed lot.

They were mostly pines, never

valued here in the South except for pulp, and the new neighbor had his

heart set on a tennis court. But for my friend, it was the end of the

shady back corner of her own yard, the annihilation of bird habitat, and

the loss of privacy.

In less than five years, the

new neighbor was gone. The current owners of the house are not tennis

players, and that court is now a scab of crumbling asphalt. Needless to

say, in 30 years, the trees have not come back.

Similarly, we've seen pecan

orchards leveled for shopping centers which in a few years are abandoned

as newer malls spread farther from town, drawing a town's vitality with

them. Where slow-growing hardwoods had reached for the sun, now empty

buildings and parking lots mock corporate ambition, monuments to greed.

A neighbor of ours removed

most of the trees in her backyard to give her children more room to play.

She was indignant when a developer leveled the little hardwood forest

that backed up to her property, and built houses in full view of her kitchen

window. The neighbor has since moved, of course, leaving her stripped

backyard for someone else to deal with.

We know builders who cared

enough to go to great effort to save every tree they possibly could, to

the delight of the neighborhood until the new homeowner came in and cut

them down. They'll probably be gone soon, the new folks. It's a sure thing

the trees won't be back.

All this to say I was troubled

that would keep Peachtree City homeowners from wanton destruction

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