How big is a big oak? The International Book of Trees states that "a big oak has some 250,000 leaves". And every year you suddenly realise that you have left it too late, for you have the slightly daft idea that your own big oak should have its leaves counted. Why? Just for the hell of it. Not to prove the writer of the book, Hugh Johnson, right or wrong, but to satisfy your curiosity.
This year, once again it has been left too late. One day there was a good scattering of the leaves all around, even some trying to work their way in under the door; another day you looked out on a still morning after night gales and saw the grass, about 30 yards by 40, apparently four inches deep in brown leaves. Well, it was an unusually thick carpet.
A few years ago, in this corner, a counting campaign, started far too late, was mentioned. What was gathered was, indeed, carefully measured out. First, 1,000 leaves were counted and a container was found to hold them exactly. A small barrow held the contents of six of these. Thus 6,000 leaves were put into the pile in the corner - compost heap of a sort. Anyway, in all, eight barrowloads of this measure were deposited thus coming half way to the 100,000 mentioned in another book.
But by the time our two warriors had begun to gather up that amount, winds had already scattered leaves to the four corners of all the gardens around - for it is a tall tree and neighbours probably don't thank you for letting them have that particular manifestation of a tree's beauty among their own growings.
Not to mention all that had blown out of sight before autumn began. So this experiment was only meant to be exploratory. Another year it should be earlier. But the resolution to count was not so strong, even though the temptation was just as great or greater. Johnson's book gives a good, graphically illustrated idea of how trees work, from their roots to their tips.
Of leaves he says: "The leaf has the task of collecting food. Ninety per cent of the solid matter that makes up the trunk, the branches and the roots themselves is carbohydrates plucked, as it were, out of the sky by the feeding leaves".
"A leaf becomes self-supporting remarkably quickly. Before it is even half-grown it has started exporting nourishment to the rest of the tree". And leaves get food out of the ground as well as the air. They draw up water containing minerals from the soil . . . read all about it. Though you probably have before.