Binary Options

I've previously mentioned wide-spread tree-planting that has happened in our valley in the last ten years. In the main, I don't think there is any economic reason for farmers to do this, though there may be some funding that encourages it. I think it is mostly amenity planting by landowners - often wealthy people with no background in agriculture - who acquire land as a pastime, a location for a luxury house, a place where they can play out their idea of the good life

The consequence is that many hectares of farmland
- a mixture of grass and arable crops - has moved out of food production and into woodland that will have almost no financial output. It will be for the pleasure of those who can access it, or at least see it, and it will have an impact on the ecology of the area, and the mix of flora and fauna. It's natural to assume that it will produce greater biodiversity and, in some sense, a 'healthier' environment, though I don't know if there is any hard, objective evidence to back up that instinct. What is certain is that it will reduce the output of food

From what I have seen, most of the planting is a mixture of native tree species. This one is definitely some kind of Viburnum. I think probably 'guelder rose', though it might be a 'wayfaring tree'. I'm not clever enough to tell, though we have planted both ourselves. They are both lovely names. 

Guelder rose derives from a Dutch province of Gelderland, where a garden cultivar of the species was produced, despite the plant being native British. It's also called a 'European cranberry', which suggests edibility, and some sources say it is edible and even suggest ways it has been eaten in the past. The RHS, meanwhile, says "not to be eaten. Wear gloves and other protective equipment when handling". That's the Internet. All agree the berries are good for birds, especially bullfinch (of which we have a few) and waxwing, which I have never seen. They look beautiful, exotic birds in pictures, but they are only winter visitors to the east coast

'Wayfaring tree' was named in the 1590s by a herbalist called John Gerrard, who observed it beside paths between Wiltshire and London, helping to guide travellers, he thought. Everyone seems unanimous in this case that the berries are mildly toxic to people but fine for birds. By this stage of the winter, I would have expected at least some of the berries to have changed from red to black, which is why I think this is the least likely option. I like onle little snippet I found about it: "When the preserved body of a hunter from 4000 BC was found in the Alps, the arrows in his quiver were made from wayfaring tree twigs." There is more than one way that it kept wayfarers safe, then