It may be that you didn’t have time to read yesterday’s post. It gives context to today, so go there.
Near Visart’s beech there is another named tree. The Debruyn Oak. It is one of the very few identified trees in Stevens’ map from just over a hundred years ago that still remains.
But who was Debruyn, and why does this tree still exist?
𝐀𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
Recorded as if in the early 20th century, walking slowly beneath the beeches, stopping often.
Interviewer
Monsieur Debruyn, unlike Visart, you were not a politician. Yet your name stands beside his in the forest.
Debruyn
That is because forests are not governed only from desks. Someone must count, measure, argue quietly with time. I was content to be that someone.
Interviewer
You were a forester by training.
Debruyn
Yes. Trained in the practical tradition. Surveying, rotation, soils, wind exposure. I worked in the Sonian Forest when it was still very much a working forest, not yet the place of reverence it would later become.
Interviewer
The oak that bears your name stands close to the great Visart Beech once stood.
Debruyn
Close enough to hear it fall, one might say, though not in my lifetime. The oak was already notable when I first worked that sector. Oaks and beeches do not compete in the same way. The oak holds its ground. The beech claims the sky.
Interviewer
Why was the oak named for you?
Debruyn
Because I refused to have it felled.
Interviewer
That simple?
Debruyn
Simple, yes. Easy, no. At the turn of the century, oak was money. Straight oak doubly so. There was pressure. Always pressure. The argument was that the tree stood slightly off-plan, inconvenient for extraction routes.
I argued that the forest plan should bend, not the oak.
Interviewer
Was that unusual?
Debruyn
Increasingly so. Forestry was becoming rationalised. Yield tables. Predictability. Yet the Sonian Forest is not a plantation. It is an inheritance. Some trees carry history in their posture. You do not remove those lightly.
Interviewer
You worked through the years leading up to the First World War.
Debruyn
A sobering time. Timber demands increased. The language of urgency entered forestry. I saw good men persuaded to cut what they knew should stand. After the war, many regretted it.
The oak survived because it had already been named. Names protect.
Interviewer
You knew Visart?
Debruyn
Yes. We did not always agree. He spoke well. I spoke rarely. But we shared a conviction that the Sonian Forest should not be treated as expendable land between Brussels and the countryside.
Interviewer
Today, the path that once led near both trees has been closed.
Debruyn
That does not trouble me. Paths exist to serve forests, not the reverse. If a path begins to harm what it approaches, it has forgotten its purpose.
Interviewer
What do you hope people understand when they see your oak?
Debruyn
That someone once said no. Quietly. Without ceremony. That is often enough.
Interviewer
You seem uninterested in legacy.
Debruyn
Trees are better legacies than statues. They require patience, not applause.
You can recognise this tree easily enough. Don't approach it, the soil is fragile and your steps can weaken its grip on life. Just pay your respects, it deserves them. As does Debruyn.