\npublished in the Hunterdon Co. Democrat, December 11, 1930<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Does lightning ever strike a beech tree? I do not know but do wish I did. Among the earliest traditional Indian lore drilled into me was this: \u201cLightning never strikes a beech.\u201d This was usually supplemented by a declaration that an Indian, if caught in a shower, always ran for a beech tree. If asked why he did that, his answer was sure to be something like this: Pointing his finger toward the sky or toward a frowning cloud and then making a zigzag motion, the Indian would grunt out, \u201cNo hit um beech.\u201d The white people who quoted from Poor Lo always seemed to have full faith that he knew what he was talking about.<\/p>\n As far as taking the precaution went, I accepted the statement and always chose a beech when practicable. But a persistently doubting spirit led to setting myself the task of proving the claim groundless. I thought that would be easy: just a few weeks or months of looking around would furnish proof sufficient to convince anybody of the error. But up to this time, positive proof seems as far away as ever. From that time to this\u2014a long search for a trifle like that, you may say\u2014I have been hunting for a beech tree that showed reasonable evidence of having been struck at some time, or, failing in that, for some reliable person who had positive knowledge of such a tree. No stricken beech has been found, nor has any witness been willing to declare personal know-ledge of either such striking or such witness-bearing tree.<\/p>\n Many have been interrogated. The response, accompanied by a look of surprise, has generally been a question instead of an answer: \u201cA beech tree struck by lightning\u2014why not?\u201d<\/p>\n To which my answer has been something like this: \u201cI am not trying to explain why not, or even to show that it is not. I am trying to find some proof that a beech tree is sometimes struck.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe-e-ll, when I come to think over all of the trees that I know had been hit by lightning, I can\u2019t recall a beech among them!\u201d<\/p>\n So it goes, and still the fruitless hunt goes on. Yet, after all these years of inquiry and observation, and all these failures to secure the desired proof, I still believe that a beech tree might and would, under some conditions, be struck by lightning. But the beech is evidently almost immune. If one must seek shelter under a tree in time of a thunder shower, I join the wise old Indian\u2014wiser in many things than we without knowing or caring anything about the reasons\u2014in recommending the beech as the safest tree known to us.<\/p>\n Observations along this line shows unmistakable evidence of much variation in the liability of different kinds of them. Of all the varieties known to me, the black walnut would be my last choice as a place of refuge during an electric storm. The walnut seems to be forever getting into the way of the lightning or else in some mysterious way to be signaling it to come. Anyhow, there appears to be a great affinity between the two. But I have never seen a walnut tree badly shattered, as so many others are. These two facts concerning the walnut may readily be explained by saying the tree is a good conductor and is gently treated accordingly, while the beech\u2019s practical immunity may be explained by saying it offers much resistance and, if hit, would doubtless be torn to splinters. But that, like so many other \u201cexplanations\u201d leaves the real question unanswered.<\/p>\n In this connection it may be interesting to note that there is a persistent belief that a walnut tree, once struck by lightning never afterward bears good nuts. I do not know that this is true, but fine-flavored nuts borne by such a tree are among the things yet to be found.<\/p>\n Everybody knows that lightning plays some curious pranks. Generally it strikes a tree and runs directly down\u2014unless the grain is twisted\u2014leaving a torn and jagged path but not killing the tree. At another time, the tree may die of what seemed to be a negligible injury. And again, it may shatter a great trunk as if a box of dynamite had exploded at its heart.<\/p>\n I remember, as doubtless many others do, that up to forty or fifty years ago, a fine white oak tree stood on the westerly side of the road from Jacob Gray\u2019s sawmill to Flemington, perhaps 200 yards above Gray\u2019s gate. This had been a landmark through all of my early life. Its clean bole, perhaps three feet across and thirty to the limbs, together with its graceful top, commanded no little admiration.<\/p>\n One day after a hard shower, while driving along the road, I was surprised to see the fine old landmark a total wreck. The top had been entirely torn off some fifteen feet from the ground and buried into the field. There it lay, a most distressing sight, instead of being a thing of beauty as before. The shattered stump looked more like an old-time \u201csplint broom\u201d for scrubbing stables than like the perfect trunk which had been so long admired. Why must that bolt \u201cexplode\u201d like a case of nitroglycerine right in the middle of that log? Nobody knows, but there was the unmistakable evidence that something of the kind had taken place.<\/p>\n We are apt to look upon a lone tree standing high and dry upon some prominent elevation as particularly exposed to lightning, while we consider its neighbor on the fertile lowland as far more favorably located. But the maple or the poplar on its high hill may stand unharmed for many years after its sheltered neighbor of the same variety has been torn to splinters.<\/p>\n But this does not mean that the elevated monarch on his shady throne is immune. I know of one such lone poplar that stood unharmed on Sandy Ridge, generation after generation, while people wondered why it had been able to defy the lightning so long. One day about five years ago, the fine old tree was struck and seriously injured. It survived the shock, but was badly \u201cscarred for life\u201d\u2014which however, did not prove to be for a long time. The next summer it was struck again, this time twice during the same shower, if the people living within fifty yards of the tree were sure of their facts, as no doubt they were. This time it was so badly torn that its days were numbered.<\/p>\n![\"Bewick](\"https:\/\/goodspeedhistories.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Bewick-Oak.png\")
<\/a>This article, with which I end the year 2014, can be seen as a follow up to Bush\u2019s article previously published here called \u201cGathering Nuts Was Once an Industry<\/a>.\u201d There is nothing in the way of genealogy in this article, but it is full of the usual Bush charm.<\/p>\nWhy Not?<\/h4>\n
Destroys Nuts\u2019 Flavor?<\/h4>\n
Twice in One Shower<\/h4>\n