A good old Dorset friend of mine told me to put newspaper into the hollow of the Appletree and then set fire to it. He might well have got this information from his father and his grandfather who knew countryside folklore extremely well. We did this about 25 years ago and the tree thrived producing many apples. It was totally hollow on the inside and only appeared to be supported by the bark and a little of the tree. We have a video of this somewhere. Today, I repeated the same thing to another old very hollow-trunked Appletree. I now look forward to seeing if it will produce good food in the summer, and hope it has ‘long life and happiness’! I have taken a video of this also.
