# Trees on finished Buildings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140 "2006-03-20T15:35:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/1 "2006-03-20T15:35:52Z")
OK. My coworker was just mentioning that there is a tradition of putting a tree on top of a tall building when the steel work for the top floor is completed. He noted that it was the case when he was growing up in Ohio but apparently does not happen down here in Florida. I vaguely remember something about a christmas tree on top of a building but thinking that it was due to it being christmas time rather than because of an old steel workers’ tradition. So what is the deal? I have some ignorance here that needs fighting. ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/2 "2006-03-20T15:42:11Z")
An article on the custom of “[topping out](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3732/is_200110/ai_n8986046)”. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/3 "2006-03-20T15:54:25Z")
Geez, you didn’t just fight ignarance. You whacked it and then went after it’s family. I’ve only read the first page of the article so far and already know way more than I thought I’d get out of this. ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/4 "2006-03-20T16:07:22Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Geez, you didn’t just fight ignarance. You whacked it and then went after it’s family. > > I’ve only read the first page of the article so far and already know way more than I thought I’d get out of this. _bows_ Glad to help. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/5 "2006-03-20T16:50:53Z")
Eric Sloane is quoted briefly in the article that **danceswith cats** provided: > [@](#): > > The use of the evergreen tree as a symbol of good luck for American builders is also discussed briefly by Eric Sloane, in A Reverence for Wood, where he recounts finding the desiccated remains of a small tree nailed to the gable of an old barn he was dismantling. Sloane was told that the tree was called a “wetting bush,” an old New England custom used in the christening ceremony to bring luck to the structure (1965: 37-38). > . . . > Likewise, Sloane, a master carpenter, tells us he was only vaguely aware of the tradition, and his description of the custom implies that he had never seen it in practice. Quoted from page 11 of Sloane, Eric. 1965. A Reverence For Wood. New York: Wilfred Funk. John Robinson may be correct that Sloane did not know at one point, although Sloane is often sufficiently cryptic (and rarely cites sources) that such a judgement may be incorrect. Elsewhere, Sloane has written: > [@](#): > > The foundations of the American nation were laid with the building of the first barns. The hewn rafters of the first Plymouth barn were put in place and, with a prayer of thanksgiving, a small tree was lashed to the peak as part of the ceremony. Builders still put that symbolic tree on the rooftree of a new house without any particular reverence for the wood itself, but just for “the luck of the house,” The great importance of trees in the forming of an American philosophy seems almost lost in this plastic age. Eric Sloane American Barns and Covered Bridges ©1954 Wilfred Funk & Co. collected in Eric Sloane’s America, ©1982 Galahad Books by arrangement with Harper & Row, Publishers, New York I do not have a good explanation why Sloane’s 1954 book provides a more authoritative description than the book written eleven years later, although the later book might have been based on an even earlier recollection of an event from his youth (or he may have only been unfamiliar with the “bush wetting” celebration while recognizing the tradition of topping the house with a tree as the point of the 1965 anecdote). ---
**Author:** ![al129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6de8d8/32.png) [@al129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al129)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trees-on-finished-buildings/349140/6 "2006-03-20T17:20:22Z")
this seems to be a pretty global custom … its done in central europe (germany, austria) as well as latin america (chile)…