I had no choice really in cutting down a massive sugar maple about a month ago. It was 33-35" in diameter easily over 150 years old. We were concerned it either fall over on the house or one or more branches would. We all are devastated about taking our friend of 29 years down. It had split in the interior which showed a long crack of long wood at eye level. You could see where the 2-3 layers of bark was growing to heal up itself. Just imagine about a 7-9" wide slit vertically showing the raw wood, apparently the tree had been working to close this gap for quite a few years probably over 10. I have no idea but it was a very long, grueling process for the Maple.😢 So its been over 5 weeks now. Get a load of this part...I noticed several weeks before it was removed that maple went to seed with more seed than anytime that we lived here (1995!). I mean there were thousands and thousands of seed outside, it was incredible. I'm still picking them up. I've never seen so many here. And I could swear this tree was dumping both sized seeds, large ones that resembled wings only 1 half, and tiny ones looking like tadpoles. I thought sugar maples only dropped the medium 2 half spinning ones. I had practically very few of those green ones. I need to do more research. I really believe the Sugar Maple knew it was.going to be cut down fairly soon and was reacting to it being on all of our minds and possibly responding in various ways. True or not I have no idea but its sort of a heart felt situation, an Interesting association if its for real or not. I can't say, we'll probably never know. I never realized how close to a 'tree' one could or would get. We all loved that tree if that's even possible. I did save a huge piece of it I can barely move without a hand truck. Such is life. Sorry bout all that.