I READ with concern your report (Worcester News, Thursday, March 31) of "an application for work to be carried out to trees around a health facility" in Barbourne.

Worcester Mental Health Partnership should be cautioned by the words of the 17th Century priest philosopher Thomas Traherne, who wrote: "A tree apprehended is a tree in your mind."

In his day the verb "to apprehend" had a mental sense - "to become conscious by the senses of..."

Traherne believed trees were a source of healing for all. He was one of the world's earliest psychologists, and we ignore him at our peril.

"Shall man, for whom all trees were made, receive all the beauty of the world in vain?"

THE REV RICHARD BIRT,

Hereford.