The Old Oak of Farmer Peeters

Somebody wrote a book about the trees of this town, and because of it we know what this oak is called. The national register does not usually explain its own names. Here it does: the tree is listed as de oude eik van boer Peeters, and the register says the name comes from 'Grote en kleine geschiedenissen rond bomen in Helmond en omgeving' by Maria van de Looverbosch, a collection of large and small histories of the trees in and around Helmond. That chain is worth appreciating. A local writer went round asking about trees, wrote down what people called them, published it, and a national government survey later read the book and used the name. Farmer Peeters himself has vanished entirely. The oak is banded 1820 to 1830, so it is about two centuries old and stands at Brouwhuis on the Rijnlaan, in what is now a housing district on what was farmland when it was planted. That is the fate of most old farm oaks that survive: the fields go, the buildings arrive, and the tree ends up in a green strip with a street name around it and a farmer's name attached.