I own a large burr oak, in fact a cluster of about 5 burr oak trees. The
largest
of which is approx. 5' in diameter trunk. I hate to cut it down if this
tree is
the oldest burr oak in South Dakota. Anyone in South Dakota have a
larger
Burr Oak than this?

Question: I know oak is hard wood. And from looking at the growth
patterns
of oak versus hickory. I am wondering how is it that hickory wood can
withstand
shock and heavy use in tool handles. Oak trees generally can put out
limbs
that are almost parallel to the ground. But hickory cannot do that.
Cannot bear
the weight of parallelism to the ground.

So, somewhere in the evolution of trees, the oak wood was able to evolve
a
wood that is so strong it can parallel the ground but the hickory wood
never
was able to parallel the ground.

So, is hickory wood really the best wood for tool handles or is oak wood

better? There maybe a difference in tensile strength and supporting
strength.

Question: does hickory grow in England? I am remembering that the
trebuchet
was built with oak timbers. If hickory grows in England, why did they
not
use hickory timbers for their trebuchets.

I seem to be detecting a contradiction here. We are come to believe that
hickory
is the strongest wood for shock and tool handles. But is that really
true. Since
hickory trees cannot grow limbs parallel with the ground, suggests that
the
hickory wood is really not as strong as the oak wood.

My guess is that oak is the strongest wood because it can grow limbs
parallel
to the ground with much ease. But that oak is more difficult to work
with
in crafting a tool handle whereas the hickory is so much easier for a
craftsman
to fashion into a tool handle. So that the endconclusion is that oak is
the
superior hard wood and that hickory is just easier to work with.

P.S. Can I trim some limbs off of this 5' oak without killing the tree.
One
limb runs clear across my yard and is parallel to the ground and so
unsightly. Do Burr Oak like being trimmed or do they hate it?

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies