What’s left of the beautiful magnolia trees that once lined South Shields Lane now stand as ugly mangled distortions of nature. Visitors passing through Natchez on U.S. 61 can’t help but notice this eyesore, and you can’t help but feel for the residents on South Shields Lane. They have to look at these ugly remnants of trees every time they step outside their front doors.

We thought enough of it to make it the Mississippi State Tree, but crews hired to clear limbs and trees from power lines are in the process of butchering them without any regards to what they are leaving behind.

Magnolias are not the only variety of trees being destroyed by the clearing crews. Other neighborhoods have the scarred remnants of what used to be beautiful trees outlining roadsides.

Perhaps better planning when the trees were planted could have prevented the trees from growing into power lines. However, if just a small amount of common sense were used by supervisors in charge of the tree trimming operation, they would realize that butchering trees until nothing is left but a mangled trunk with distorted branches makes no sense whatsoever.

If we are going to butcher trees and leave nothing but ugly eyesores, we may as well remove the entire tree and move toward treeless roadsides.

Considering the fact that this same issue was featured in media recently, it’s hard to understand why crews are still passing through our area destroying our beautiful trees.

Ed Tucker

Natchez Resident