THIS newspaper’s Letters Pages have been buzzing this week. First, there was the great steak pie controversy.

Even though I’m now vegetarian, I retain strong feelings on this matter from my meat-eating days when, like dozens of decent ratepayers, I became dispirited by the fare that passed for steak pies in many pubs and hotels dishing out lunch.

To wit, instead of a proper pie cooked in its pastry, we got a bowl of weak stew with an accompanying lid quite literally detached from the meat. Added to that, if I remember rightly, it was always difficult to fork up the fodder in the bowl, leading to food being spilt down my tuxedo — pub lunch or no, I still like to dress for the occasion — and even at times on to my wellingtons.

However, it is not the state of steak pies in contemporary Scottish society that I wish to chew over with you today. No, perusing the Letters Pages with a sleepy eye one morning, it was the headline “Trees no more than big weeds” that made me spit my Honey Loops across the room, once more coating the parrot in milky, half-chewed grains (don’t worry, he’s used to it; happens pretty much hourly; I do like cereal and I’m perpetually dumbfounded by life).

That aforementioned buzzing in the Letters Pages emanated from a chainsaw. Trees are weeds? “How dare you, madam!” I spluttered, before reading the letter and noticing that it was by a sir, indeed a Dr.

Furthermore, on reading the letter, I found myself thinking: “That is a good point, well made.” The essence of the good doctor’s case was that trees had “an undue status in the human psyche simply because of their size”.

Controversially, he contended that crops such as maize, alfalfa or other animal pabulum produced more beneficial chlorophyll than even the mighty oak. “I would challenge any arboreophile to prove me wrong,” he concluded, so assertively that I hid behind the couch.

Arboreophile, eh? No need for that kind of language. I am a dendrophiliac. Alas, I am also thick, and so couldn’t think of anything to say in reply to the Saltcoats scholar’s chlorophyllous point. Thankfully, another reader rode to the rescue, pointing out that a stand of trees would probably stay fixed for decades, while a field of crops is temporary.

Generously, this self-confessed Bob from Glasgow also deployed the expression “aesthetics aside”. Yet aesthetics form the starting point for many leading citizens when it comes to trees. I do sometimes wonder where we get our romantic attachment to the sight of trees and, indeed, patchwork fields of crops. Perhaps it’s culturally generated from childhood books and soupy advertising.

Perhaps it’s because both sights are reassuring atavistically. Trees provide shelter, crops provide food. It may also depend on what you’re used to. I had a friend in barren grimlands who disliked trees because they spoiled the view of nothing.

Fair point. I have a problem with trees keeping light out of my garden, and noticed this week that a famous former footerist had gone to court with his plea for less tree and more light.

And yet. I would not lose entirely the trees that block my light. Pruning might do it. The other middle way might be to make all trees bonsai, but that is a cruel and unnatural practice. Besides, it would be an odd woodland walk that featured frequent signs advising: “Please do not stand on the trees.”

No, as the doc said, we like trees because they are pleasingly large. We need, therefore, to consult a large book. And, faced with a dilemma, which large book do we consult, readers? Correct: The Lord of the Rings (did I hear sighing there?).

You will recall that, in Tolkien’s stirring opus, the evil Orcs were destroyers of trees, dragging them into furnaces for grim, industrial purposes. The good guys – elves particularly – loved trees.

I need not remind educated readers what Treebeard the Ent said of Saruman the corrupted wizard who ordered the trees’ destruction: “He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things.”

That nails it for me, folks. A fie upon your chlorophyllous calculations. Agreed, it wouldn’t do if the whole world were trees. But bung in some fields full of crops and we have the best of both worlds.

There, I have solved the problem. However, I remain at a loss on the steak pie crisis.