Department of little to do. In December last, it was decided to test one or two casual estimates of the number of leaves a big oak tree might carry and shed. The highest figure was Hugh Johnson's in his International Book of Trees: "a big oak has some 250,000 leaves". He doesn't define "big" but taking an oak nearby which could not be described as other than big (though there are surely bigger ones in the country), a late start was made in counting. Already high winds had carried away huge numbers far beyond the property on which it stood.
The method of counting was laid out in an "Eye" of December, 7th. One thousand leaves were counted, and a container was found to hold just that number about. Then, from the heaps, a small wheelbarrow had six of these containers full emptied in, and that level was to be the norm. From then on, leaves went straight into the barrow, up to the prescribed line. Some days there were ten barrow loads, i.e., ten times six thousand. It went on and on throughout the rest of December and to the middle of January. At that time, there were still perhaps a few thousand leaves on the tree.
But energy had run out. The start had been too late. And there were still oak leaves thickly driven into a half a dozen corners where shrubs and young trees of various kinds were clustered (too thickly), and under tight hedges and among the dustbins and the log piles and the discarded garden tools beneath the trees and, you can bet, in other peoples' gardens. The figures are, in thousands: 48; 120; 210; 69; 66; 69; 66. Total: 630,000. With a bit of care, it: could have been three quarters of a million. Maybe, if a watch: had been kept from the first leaf fall and every corner cleaned out, it might have been a million. Nobody is much the wiser now, but sometimes you do useless things just for the hell of it.