Country diary: Every fruit-bearing tree needs a friend | Mark Cocker

Hassop Station, Derbyshire: This winter's irruption of waxwings is showing just how intimate the relationship is between them and trees such as elder and hawthornNear our house is a line of fruit-bearing trees - elders and hawthorns - whose origins I've often pondered. On visiting this spot near the Monsal Trail recently, I gained clearer insight into the agents that are responsible.Our long-held sense of land as legal property, not to mention our intensifying notions of agricultural mastery over all physical ground, nourishes a false impression that we control the lot. We don't. Fruit-bearing trees are often obedient to an alternative jurisdiction. Continue reading...