Treebeard on Tom Bombadil

In view of the recent news that Tolkien once said in a letter previously unpublished that Treebeard knew more about what was going on in The Shire than seems to be the case in The Lord of the Rings -- thus leading everyone to point at the screen and shout "AHA!" in vindication of Sam's cousin, Hal -- I thought a passage from The Treason of Isengard might be interesting. Not only does it lend a degree of support to the general idea that Treebeard knew more than he let on, but it comments on the elusive Bombadil in ways relevant to what Old Tom says about himself and to what Tolkien said about him in various letters. I don't have the time right now to discuss what we might learn about Bombadil from Treebeard, but I do love how impressed Treebeard is by the length of Tom's name. It must be long indeed.  

In his first conversation with Merry and Pippin Treebeard explains to them about "real names" and Old Entish:

'I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.’ A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. ‘For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.'

(TT 3.iv.465, italics added)

In a draft of this conversation, Treebeard points out that the trees [in the Old Forest] have no one to care for them.

'What about Tom Bombadil, though?’ asked Pippin. ‘He lives on the Downs close by. He seems to understand trees.’

‘What about whom?’ said Treebeard. ‘Tombombadil? Tombombadil? So that is what you call him. Oh, he has got a very long name. He understands trees, right enough; but he is not an Ent. He is no herdsman. He laughs and does not interfere. He never made anything go wrong, but he never cured anything, either. Why, why, it is all the difference between walking in the fields and trying to keep a garden; between, between passing the time of a day to a sheep on the hillside, or even maybe sitting down and studying sheep till you know what they feel about grass, and being a shepherd. Sheep get like shepherd, and shepherd like sheep, it is said, very slowly.'

(The Treason of Isengard 415-416, italics original)

Of this passage Christopher Tolkien writes:

It would be interesting to know why Treebeard’s knowledge of and estimate of Tom Bombadil was removed. Conceivably, my father felt that the contrast between Bombadil and the Ents developed here confused the conflict between the Ents and the Entwives; or, it may be, it was precisely this passage that gave rise to the idea of that conflict.

(Treason of Isengard 419 note 4)