Reply #12: I live in Tennessee and had a sugar maple tree that was slowly

[Clark2008]

dying.

I couldn't afford a tree surgeon, so I tried the local co-op's services to try and determine what was causing it.

It wasn't infested with any vermin. It may have been struck by lightening (not sure), but it most certainly was dying from the top down, not the bottom up as you suggest.

I sold that house to my mother who took some inheritence money and just had the tree cut (it was very, very large and could have fallen on the neighbors' houses, so, rather than take a risk, she simply had it felled).

I examined the branches and the trunk after it was cut and nothing - no insect infestation, no problem with the lower branches - just the topper most of the popper most.

Very odd.