>>29183070Trees do die. Even if it looks like it's healthy and have green leaves etc, it doesn't mean that the actual trunk is safe anymore. Most of the deciduous trees have only about 60 - 200 years before they're rot and then they're extremely dangerous. That's why its' much more safer to cut them before they become time bombs.
Another thing is that even though "fat trunk" may seem that it's tough and have stand there hundreds of years, most of time time it isn't. You can't tell based on the fatness of the trunk if it's old or young. I'm quite sure that that tree isn't nowhere near 200 old, more likely 60 - 100 years old. Often the old trees do look like they're struggling and that's why no one had bother to cut them because the value would be too low and they've left to seed new trees.
If the ground has lots of nutrients, and water, the trunk and branches tends to get fat, but the core is also mushy and can't be used to anything useful. Pine tree is famous of that. If you're living in an area where pine trees grow, you can see that the trees that doesn't have branches on the middle trunk, are healthy and good timber, but, if you see, often in living areas (where people have build their houses near or even on the fields) the pine tree may have fat branches growing from the low trunk and they look more like deciduous trees than coniferous trees.
If that tree would had lived in low nutrient, low water area, it would be much more thin, but it would also be extremely tough and best building material there can be.
Today mushiness is the problem with the trees, because they can't stand the forces, like weight, wind etc when building houses. But of course there must be a compromises because, you can't raise them on the swamps either, because then even though you can plant them, only your childrens children can enjoy the money when they cut them.