An inspection of the trees has confirmed the hypothesis of colleagues from the Pushkin museums that the park at Khmelita may well be a Masonic one

An inspection of the trees has confirmed the hypothesis of colleagues from the Pushkin museums that the park at Khmelita may well be a Masonic one. Every tree and its position means something, though these details will be worked out later; it would be very interesting to see the final reconstructed plan of the park.

Professor Tikhomirov checked the hollows of the trees and took a core sample; with the help of small holes made inside the trunk it will be possible to determine the condition of the trees. To establish a tree's age, further examinations are needed, carried out at a height on the trunk where there are no hollows. The museum's director promised to do this as early as spring.

The arborist showed how to clean out hollows with a scraper, and how a tree copes with disease by itself. He explained which fungi growing on a tree are parasites and which are saprophytes. He showed how hollows should be closed up, leaving spaces for a "draught" inside the trunk. He told us, for example, something that touches one to the core: before it dies, a tree bears fruit at its most abundant, so as to leave behind as many offspring as possible. Fortunately, there proved to be no trees at death's door at Khmelita.

The Khmelita ash, however, turned out to be very rare: in the central belt it is mostly the American ash that grows, and that one behaves like a weed, crowding out other species. Whereas on the Griboyedov estate there grows the common ash, a rarity, and it needs separate care and fencing.

Interestingly, the professor confirmed that the founder of the museum, V. E. Kulakov, was right to plant lime trees close together, a metre apart. This was how it used to be done, although at the time of planting some experts objected to such an arrangement. He did everything correctly, and nineteenth-century photographs show that it was the same in the time of the Volkovs.

After the inspection the arborist returned to his Moscow laboratory, where the report will be drawn up. Treatment of the trees will begin in spring; I shall keep you posted.