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 It's a California crime saga worthy of an Erle Stanley Gardner title:
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 The Case of the Purloined Palm Trees.
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 Edward Carlson awoke one morning last month 
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to find eight holes in his front yard
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 where his prized miniature palms,
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 called cycads,
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 once stood.
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 Days later, the thieves returned
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 and dug out more,
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 this time adding insult to injury.
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 The second time, 
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he says,
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 they left the shovel.
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 No garden-variety crime, palm-tree rustling is sprouting up all over Southern California,
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 bringing big bucks to crooks 
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who know their botany.
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 Cycads,
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 the most popular of which is the Sago Palm,
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 are doll-sized versions of California's famous long-necked palms, with stubby trunks and fern-like fronds.
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 Because the Sago is relatively rare
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 and grows only a couple of inches a year,
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 it's a pricey lawn decoration:
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 A two-foot tall Sago can retail for $1,000,
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 and taller ones often fetch $3,000 or more.
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 Evidently, somebody has realized 
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it's easy money to steal these things, 
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says Loran Whitelock, a research associate 
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specializing in cycads
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 at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum.
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 Just last week, would-be thieves damaged three Sagos at Mr. Whitelock's home in the Eagle Rock section 
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before something frightened them off, foiled.
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 It's hard to think someone is raping your garden,
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 he says.
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 Police suspect
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 that the criminals,
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 who dig up the plants in the dead of night,
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 are selling them to nurseries or landscapers.
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 The Sago has become a popular accent in tony new housing tracts,
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 apparently giving the rustlers a ready market for their filched fronds.
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 Thieves are going to find anybody
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 who has enough bucks
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 to plant these things in their front yard,
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 says William Morrissey, an investigator with the police department in Garden Grove, Calif.,
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 where five such thefts have been reported in the past several weeks.
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 The department is advising residents to plant Sagos,
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 if they must,
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 in the back yard 
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and telling nurseries to be on the lookout for anyone 
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trying to palm one off.
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 But for those Californians
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 who want exotic gardens out front
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 where neighbors can appreciate them,
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 there's always Harold Smith's approach.
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 After three Sagos were stolen from his home in Garden Grove,
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 I put a big iron stake in the ground 
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and tied the tree to the stake with a chain, 
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he says proudly.
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 And you can't cut this chain with bolt cutters.
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