Near 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.
