You wouldn’t expect the South to be home to a businessman so committed to the environment, he’d spend a small fortune to save some trees. A little-known fact, the name ‘Tennessee’ is Native American for “Trees are for fairies”. The Native Americans would never actually express this sentiment, of course - the colonists who named the state forced one to translate the phrase at musket point.

But beneath that cotton-pickin’, people-recently-enslavin’, mega-church-goin’, Confederate-flag-wavin’, kids-shootin’-deer-at-age-five chess pie crust is a gooey, delicious blend of all manner of folk, including a surprising number of compassionate – and passionate – individuals. One such individual is John Noel, who paid $270,000 to buy a grove of white oaks from investors readying to sell them off for wood veneer.

Between 50 and 100 oaks are on the land, which was a mineral springs resort during the 1800s. Foresters estimate the trees are between 200 and 400 years old. "You can almost hear those trees talk," said John Noel, the activist and businessman who stepped in to save the property.

And what they say is, “Thank you, Mr. Noel. Thank you for letting us stand tall and mighty, as all trees wish to stand. Except that needy suckhole The Giving Tree, who’s happy just to be a stump for the pimp who axed him to sit on.”

Environmentalist Buys Land to Save Ancient White Oaks from Mill (WSMV)