"If the oak before the ash, then we're in for just a splash.
If the ash before the oak, then we're in for quite a soak".
It's a Lincolnshire saying, and probably heard elsewhere in the country when the trees are coming into leaf and the older inhabitants reflect upon the forthcoming weather. The general meaning is that when the ash tree comes into leaf before the oak then it will be a wet summer, but if the oak shows its leaves first then the summer will be fine. Such country sayings are dismissed by some as nonsense - just tales told by old wives, but then - that also is just a saying. Many believe that such assertions, passed on through many generations living in the countryside and observing it, have more than a grain of truth.
The ash tree is commonly found as a seedling in most gardens which do not eradicate everything that grows spontaneously by injudicious weed killing, and experienced gardeners will know that such seedlings rapidly become trees which can be hard to remove. The oak is less frequently a spontaneous visitor for mighty oaks are now few and far between, although no-one doubts the great potential of the stray acorn. The occurrence of both of these predictors of the seasons as saplings in one garden provided the opportunity to test their reliability in this respect by the scientific method: they would be observed throughout a number of years during which the summer and autumn weather would be recorded against the entry of which was the first to leaf in the spring; ten years of scientific observation would suffice to demonstrate the correctness or otherwise of the saying. The record was begun.
In the first spring the end-point of each measuement was defined: it would be the complete unfolding of the first leaf, which for the ash is a rapid process, but the oak takes a day or two to declare itself; the first leaf to bud, however, could be the opposite way round.
After a year or two it was clear that the ash, positioned to catch a good dose of morning sun, was rapidly becoming a flourising tree, whereas the oak, in the shade of the north side of the garden, was a slowly growing and much more delicate affair. Clearly, the environmental conditions were not controlled and there was the likelihood of the more robust ash always preceding the oak in leafing, and predicting a series of wet summers. The oak was the easier to move, and it was re-planted alongside the ash to enjoy the full splendour of the early morning sun. For a year or two their time of leafing was happily recorded, and then, when both were leafing together, it became difficult to decide which actually were first to unfurl completely, and the record again became abritrary. Furthermore, the oak was clearly the slower growing tree, and as its neighbours, including the ash, flourished so the oak was once more shaded, and clearly disdavantaged. Again, there was a need to obtain controlled environmental conditons, and the oak was again re-planted. In a further year it was only too apparent that we had a flourishing ash and a withering oak.
An improvement in method was clearly needed, and it was decided that the recording of the time of leafing of a number of established ash and oak trees in the surounding woodlands would be preferable - a number of readings taken by a number of people would average out to a satisfactory end point; these records, over a number of years, could then be compared with those obtained from other parts of the countryside.
Such a study, on further reflection, would have many features in common with the oral tradtion whereby the accumulated knowledge of each generation is passed on to the next; the tales of old wives, should they prove to have within them important grains of truth, would survive as the record of their observed experience in matters of life around them, but their idle gossip would not so endure.
In that case, when looking to future weather during spring time, it might suffice to believe the country saying in the first place, for the application of diligent scientific method may raise more questions than it answers.