samedi 7 avril 2007

Tractor and a Walnut Tree... Driver zig-zags... but he isn't nuts For a tree that grows so rapidly - attaining a height of perhaps 20 feet within the first decade and 70-90 feet overall when mature - and in the middle of anywhere, it's a wonder that the Walnut is so revered by farmers. Whilst no stranger in these parts it is actually not native to Europe, being introduced to Britain, Germany - and most certainly to France where I now live - as well as to their homeland of Italy, by the Romans who probably brought it from Persia... its Greek names Persicon and Basilicon being clues to its origins. The Walnut tree was valued by the Romans both for making furniture and for its bountiful supplies of energy-giving food... but, 2,000 years on, the average household most likely buys a bag of seasonal (i.e., overpriced!) Walnuts simply for Christmas tide table decoration and thinks no more about them until woken up after dinner by someone else splitting them open with what sounds like an agonised creaking and splintering as fumbling fingers and nutcrackers attack them. In France the nuts are valued too, being eaten in quantity or pressed for the oil... but here few people buy them... the nuts are there for the taking and free to all without there being a free for all. Drive or wander down any French chemin rural or chemin de terre after a September gale and under what is evidently a Walnut tree you will see a stooped figure rapidly picking through the dirt and grass, and expertly tossing their finds into a sack. I do know that Walnuts are a plentiful crop... last year the four mature trees in the garden here provided over 60 kilos of them. But back to farmers... whilst living in mid-Wales we witnessed many small, odd-shaped fields being ploughed-up after their meandering boundary hedges of something approaching 300-400 years of age were ripped out by JCB diggers... so that an approved, uniform looking grass could be sown (the colour of the landscape gradually became "Euro Green"). Only a few years after having witnessed this destruction we saw the same farmers planting replacement hedges... they received EEC grants for both so-called "improvements" to the land. So imagine my surprise in France to see so many Walnut trees in the landscape... (which were my first on-line images taken with a digital camera). They seem to be everywhere... and obviously in the way when it comes to farming the fields. Well, this morning, whilst gazing out of the kitchen window waiting for more coffee to brew, I saw what happens when such a field does need farming. The tractor, with fully extended booms of a sprayer, was driven at what seemed like normal speed up to a Walnut tree in the middle of the field... but the farmer braked sharply just as the boom reached the solitary tree trunk... then he backed-off and swerved around the tree... did a couple of zig-zags and backed up to the other side of the tree trunk... then carried on as normal. I feel that in the UK such a tree, and many others no doubt, would have been felled years ago without a thought of their usefulness in and to the habitat... only that they would have to go because they were in the way. Here, French farmers are well known for blockading roundabouts and causing obstructions... but on the other hand they also go out of their way to go around obstructions so that others can benefit. Update [11 avril 2007] Whilst writing the above, a tiny bit of my mind was digging away at something I had read many years before... and of course what it was searching for only came to light a few days after posting the original piece. C'est la vie! It was a reference - any reference, for there were several - to the Walnut tree in either of Philip Oyler's books "The Generous Earth" (1950) or "Sons of the Generous Earth" (1963) both published by Hodder & Stoughton, London. I bought both books for a shilling each many years ago... the former a horrible ex-public library copy now going mouldy, the latter in excellent condition with dust jacket. If you have a chance to purchase these books from a second-hand bookshop do so... they describe a peasant-farmed Dordogne - predating Peter Mayle and his descriptions of English-influenced Provence by some years... and are all the better for it. The first quote I found which is pertinent to the original article is from "Sons of the Generous Earth" (Chapter X) describing the fields on each bank of the River Dordogne... "By the time the river has reached us, the valley is at least half a mile wide and beautifully cultivated in parcels of all sizes and shapes, with an incredible variety of crops. Here one sees patches of wheat and beans, oats, barley, rye, maize, potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, lucerne, sanfoin, rye-grass and clover, hemp, vines, tobacco, haricot beans, mangolds, sugar-mangolds, turnips of various kinds, red carrots for human consumption, and large white carrots for animals, kohl-rabi, a variety of cabbage especially the Jersey Walking-stick, asparagus, tomatoes and the usual vegetables, and pumpkins, marrows and melons, mostly consumed by the cattle. But that is not all. Standing among all the crops are hundreds of walnuts, greengages, peaches, dessert apples and pears, and here and there, a fig or two in each vineyard planted simply to provide refreshment when picking grapes. Oh! Pity the poor peasant and his animals!" Walnuts and Flowers (Noix et Fleurs) Giclee Print Ochoa, Isy 24 in. x 18 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed   Mounted 10:37:49 PM    comment []