Comment by lubujackson
2 days ago
I'm reminded of the famous story of (I think) the central beam in a building at Oxford. The story goes something like:
The central beam was beginning to fail and the Oxford administration knew they needed to replace it. When they went around for quotes, no one could replace the beam because it was 100 ft in length and sourced from an old growth tree. Such logs were simply unavailable to buy. To solve the issue, the staff begin to look at major renovations to the building's architecture.
Until the Oxford groundskeeper heard about the problem. "We have a replacement beam," he said.
The groundskeeper took the curious admins to the edge of the grounds. There stood two old growth trees, over 150 feet tall.
"But these must be over 200 years old! When were they planted?" the admins asked.
"The day they replaced the previous beam."
This is an urban legend. The college archivist covered it: http://web.archive.org/web/20020816065622/http://www.new.ox....
> In 1859, the JCR told the SCR that the roof in Hall needed repairing, which was true.
> In 1862, the senior fellow was visiting College estates on `progress', i.e., an annual review of College property, which goes on to this day (performed by the Warden). Visiting forests in Akeley and Great Horwood, Buckinghamshire (forests which the College had owned since 1441), he had the largest oaks cut down and used to make new beams for the ceiling.
> It is not the case that these oaks were kept for the express purpose of replacing the Hall ceiling. It is standard woodland management to grow stands of mixed broadleaf trees e.g., oaks, interplanted with hazel and ash. The hazel and ash are coppiced approximately every 20-25 years to yield poles. The oaks, however, are left to grow on and eventally, after 150 years or more, they yield large pieces for major construction work such as beams, knees etc.
But this urban legend must be over 150 years old! When was it created?
Right after they consumed the previous rural legend.
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> the roof in Hall needed repairing, which was true. > Visiting forests in Akeley and Great Horwood, Buckinghamshire (forests which the College had owned since 1441), he had the largest oaks cut down and used to make new beams for the ceiling.
So seems like the "legend" is true after all, the trees were 150+ old and let to grow, and the "takedown" is just not wanting to acknowledge that they did it purposefully, which is beside the point pedantic hair splitting...
> just not wanting to acknowledge that they did it purposefully
So the punchline of the urban legend is in question? The part that makes it so interesting? Not sure that qualifies as 'pedantic hair splitting'.
I would only "complain" about this urban legend if there was no way someone would be so future-thinker as to plant trees that are going to be used one or two centuries later.
But since I'm sure we have done things like that in the past, for me, the urban legend is "valid" and I don't feel like that specific case being true or false is that important, just the pattern...
> It is not the case that these oaks were kept for the express purpose of replacing the Hall ceiling.
> The oaks, however, are left to grow on and eventally, after 150 years or more, they yield large pieces for major construction work such as beams, knees etc.
Splitting hairs a bit. In fact what they did was to maintain a more general solution, maintaining a supply of wood over the long term of 400 years.
Ah yes, "exacting young man debunks charming tale with touching moral, to the benefit of nobody". A tale as old as time.
It is good to be able to recognize charming tales and other biases and influences in a narrative. Having them pointed out counteracts the readiness of people to take things at face value. Knowing that something is a tale does not have to take away from it.
I don't know what irked you about the other comment, but I think there's a positive side to it.
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I think it still works fine as a parable, and it doesn't hurt to know a little bit more about how the trees are Oxford are really kept.
There's a better version of this sort of story that I first heard also set at Oxford.
The stone steps in front of one of the college buildings have been worn down by centuries of people walking up them. The college decides to replace it, but it turns out that the stone used comes from a specific quarry in Wales that in the hundreds of year that have elapsed has been finished when it comes to this sort of rock.
Nobody is sure what to do. They want matching stone but the only other source is in South Africa and it would cost a fortune to ship the stone from there.
A young architect suddenly has a brilliant idea. "We could just extract the stone, turn it over and get a brand new edge". Everyone is very excited, and contractors and tools arrive to carry out the simultaneously tricky yet simple procedure.
It was at that point they discovered this had already been done.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit" - Paraphrased from Elton Trueblood
Which defines why American society seems to be F'ed of late. Decades of short term rewards combined with a baby boomer population looking at their last hoorah and declining relevance. Most of the old people I interact seem to be in a state of denial about soon not being here.
Or just compare the billionaires actions now - they are building tunnels in hawaii to prepare for survival just as they are knowingly destroying the future instead of spending their obscene wealth to protect it.
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Why? It's very easy to get people to plant trees for you. Just give a gardener, even a very old one, some money and they'll do it for you.
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Greatness seems to come from long term vision, and with success that vision collapses to short term gains. It’s cultural. Why does that happen and how do you prevent it?
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What a heinous posting. Judging about others shows true evil.
What is the bad part? Still number 1 GDP.
When was the glory days? Pre 1900s with slavery? The war and interwar years?
The cold war?
Pessimistic.
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Unfortunately, while they bridle at the truth, Boomers are the most selfish generation in American history. Every single political and economic action of their generation has been done explicitly at the expense of future generations to enrich themselves. They are the first and only generation in American history to leave their children worse off than themselves. Unfortunately, they are also one of the longest living generations in American history also, and still control the reins of power long after most other generations had passed along. I think we're far from reaching the pinnacle of the damage they will do to our society and to the world. Depending on how long the US lasts as an entity, they might well go down in history as the worst generational cohort ever.
Zoom out: 200 years ago they were killing each other over slavery, 400 years ago, there was no american society.
The trend is up, but they're in a local minimum :D
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There's a youtube channel shadiversity that I haven't watched in awhile. It is mostly about fantasy media and swords but also spends a lot of time on medieval building techniques and clothing. One of the more interesting videos I watched talked about how before and even after saw mills could process and produce different sized boards people would 'grow' them instead by trimming trees to produce long straight narrow branches. There was even a still living example in some English village that some trimmed 100 years ago before the process was completely stopped.
This also reminds me of those Japanese temples where in order to preserve the institutional knowledge of how to rebuild the temple in case of disaster the monks tear it down and rebuild it from scratch every 30-40 years assuring the next generation has experience.
Can't wait to see this story used on some growth hacker / seeking new opportunities LinkedIn post talking about planning for success.
The funny thing is that 99% of the linkedin shills will miss the second crux of the allegory: To maintain the institutional knowledge for this to happen, you need to have a culture that nurtures employees, keeps them on long term and listens to them. And gives them time to write good documentation for future-proofing.
It's wild that they managed to retain this knowledge without a Confluence by Atlassian subscription (tm).
This reminds me of the US Navy's Oak forest for ship building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Live_Oaks_Reservation
Although this story was debunked, many Universities own Timberland in their portfolios. They’re a good inflation hedge for schools with long time horizon. (Real estate and paper investments were historically very correlated to university costs)
https://blog.realestate.cornell.edu/2018/04/20/harvards-natu...
I have no idea if this story is true, but it should be.
We should all strive to make it so.
As said in Italian "si non è vero, è ben trovato".
Source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-ox...
Funnily, my country has a similar story but with the opposite moral.
Scattered around my country you will see plantations of huge oak trees, all the same age. What gives? Well, in 1801 and 1807, my countrys navy suffered terrible defeats by the Brits as part of the Napoleonic wars. The fleet was eventually rebuilt, but that took cutting down many old oaks. Fearing that oaks are a rare resource that must be replenished, the king ordered the plantning of new ones, so that future generations could still build powerful battleships. Those oaks matured in the 1960s.
The moral of the story is that you can't actually plan 150 years into the future.
Literally what they do for Norte dame?
>Rebuilding Notre-Dame’s “forest” also meant selecting 1,300 oak trees from across France that were “as close as possible to those of the 13th century”, that is, “very straight and very slender”, according to Desmonts, with “no defects”. Jean-Louis Bidet, the technical director of Ateliers Perrault, remembers the rush to harvest the trees in autumn so the carpenters could begin squaring the green wood from “dozens of truckloads” before the end of 2022.
Fantastic!
What is a "growth tree"?
((Old growth) tree), not (old (growth tree)).
Old growth trees are trees or forests that are centuries old and not recently cultures.
That should have been hyphenated then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest
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Not "growth tree" but an "old growth" tree. It just means a tree that was left to mature, and never cut down.
It means a mature tree in an old-growth forest. Trees that grow in the dense shade of other trees grow slower, and their growth rings are much closer together. The result is that a tree takes a lot longer to grow but it's stronger and harder than the same species grown in the sunlight.
The reason for the distinction is that most of the old growth forests have been clear-cut and the lumber available today is fast-growth farmed lumber. If you compare a 2x4 at Lowe's with a 2x4 out of a 150-year-old house, you'll see that the wood itself is very different even though the species might be the same. The tree the new 2x4 came from was fairly young, while the tree the 150-year-old 2x4 came from was probably centuries old.
Typically it also means one left to grow naturally, without forcing the rate by various methods (as is done in many modern tree farms).
is there any difference to just saying "old tree"?
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You have the real answer, but I suppose it is contrasted with a "value tree."