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It was a good many years ago that a photo by Fay Godwin* alerted me to the fact that when people carve their initials on a tree it's almost always a beech tree which is the chosen victim. Beech bark is smoother than, say, ash or oak bark - and it's that, I'm sure, that tempts these folk artists. In the course of 25 years or so I've seldom seen carvings on any other species of tree - perhaps occasionally on silver birch. The bark of hornbeam may be even smoother - but my guess is that it's tough and intractable, like the heart-wood beneath, and soon blunts a knife.