18 JUNE 1948, Page 14

Neurosis in Trees The falling of the wind, after two

weeks of clumsy and violent raging, has set me wondering about the sensibility of trees. We hear of dogs in America being treated by psycho-analysts ; so why not trees? I should like to send a consultant to an ash-tree on the hill-side which has been catching the roughest of the blasts for the past fourteen days. There it stood this morning, absolutely exhausted. Its foliage hung limp and bruised. Its branches drooped. So, too, with the cherry trees on the edge of the orchard. Some of the boughs are so inert that they are trailing on the ground. There is nothing broken, but they have no strength to sustain their own weight.