Country Life
BY IAN NIALL
FOR me, at least, trees arc as much part of a place as the habitations of man. At the ap- proach to a village on a hill near us two trees were to be seen until a day or two ago, when one of them crashed down, blocking the road and scattering debris upon it. The other tree was certain to outlast its neighbour, being a yew, with a trunk shaped like the muscles of an athlete, and hugging the wall of the church- yard. The tree that fell was an ash, a bald ash tree that seemed to have been dead for many years. It was, nevertheless, a handsome tree, even without leaves and quite bare of bark. It was, without doubt, part of the scene and essential to my mental picture of the approach to the village. When I came up the road on the day after the gale I may have felt that something was out of place, but I did not look at the skyline for the dead tree. The first sus- picion 1 had that it had fallen was when I saw an old man with a log under his arm. 'The old tree's down,' he told me. The tree was down and the last rites were being performed by a tractor pulling out the stump. Trunk and branches had been quickly gathered by the villagers, who were delighted at the windfall, but, so far as I am concerned, the place will never look quite the same again.
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