When man uses trees not planted from seeds,.....

Immediately after the storm, with the last tiny drops of rain petering out in a few minutes, the rain-water flowing slowly into the drains, I went to look at the damage nature has wrought and the amount of work that has to be involved to put things right.

As I surveyed the damage wrought by the strong wind during the storm I noticed something peculiar as I looked at all those uprooted trees. All those big trees which were uprooted by the wind and rain had no main root. The exposed roots beneath the trunks were merely about three or four feet covered with soil. This implies that those trees were planted either from cuttings or grafted. That could be the only reason those trees did not have main roots. (Even if there were main roots for those huge trees that fell, although I doubt if there were any, the main roots must be too thin to anchor the trees strongly to the ground.) Without main roots to anchor themselves, it is no wonder those huge trees could be uprooted.

So, trees planted from seeds with their main roots strongly embedded deep in the ground could withstand the forces unleashed by nature from time to time. And that is proved and confirmed to be true when I went up the hill in the morning to see some trees with broken, even twisted, trunks and branches but with the roots intact although the assault on them by the storm was not less strong up there.

Actually, I do not need to go up the hill to know that seeded trees withstood the might of the previous day’s gale better than ‘man-made trees’. I refer to those trees as man-made because nature meant big trees to have main roots to not only be stable and strong but also reach far down for the necessary water during times of drought and perhaps certain nutrients found there. (The soil is fast being drained, deprived or emptied of natural nutrients from decaying organic matter as a result of humans removing trees and natural space to make way for so called progress.) Here, in my own compound, are trees planted from seeds. There are an Alfonso mango tree with the seeds originating from the middle of a plantation in India and a star-fruit tree from the seed of an earlier plant. They stood strong against the power of the other day’s blast.

Thus, the next time we wish to plant a fruit tree which can grow tall and is situated very near to the house, a seeded plant would be better as it would be stronger and more stable with no chances of it being uprooted. Of course, with a seeded tree, we can never be sure of the taste unless it is obtained from the middle of an orchard where all the trees bear similarly good taste. Furthermore it takes longer to bear fruit.

Of course, we could still ensure safety by trimming the bud-grafted tree so as to ensure it would never grow too tall or big to cause our property or us any harm. That is the preventive measure we have to take for grafted trees, failing which another storm may appear to have the owner of such grafted trees pay a price for his unpreparedness.

A few days after the storm, I saw trees being removed or cut. Grafted trees that had grown too tall were quickly trimmed or removed. Humans react only when lessons are well taught. Nature has taught us many lessons but humans are slow at learning especially when the effects of nature's lessons are not felt. They do not react unless they feel the heat.

Talking about the heat, Northern Malaysia is experiencing one of the hottest spell it has ever had for some time. Humans complain but there are still those who continue clearing forests and burning unnecessarily. Sometimes, it takes extreme circumstances to awaken the need to save Mother Earth. Mild lessons are sometimes not heeded or learned. Perhaps, they live too much in the present moment and forget that there is a future for the human race.