Tolkien planned a Giant in LOTR? + speculations

[Pitchwife]

Sorry for nitpicking, WCH, but it's actually Frodo (then already so called) who met Treebeard in the fragment you've mentioned, not Bilbo (HoME VI, p. 382 ff). Tolkien planned for Frodo to have a 'tree adventure' after his separation from the rest of the Fellowship and rather surprised himself by having it happen to Merry and Pippin instead (probably because he'd revised the geography in the meantime).

It may be worth noting that ent is actually an Old English word for 'giant' - which is why the Ettenmoors north of Rivendell were called Entish Lands in the early drafts, as they were supposed to be populated by Trolls and/or other giantish creatures (nothing to do with the Ents as we now know them).

By the way, unless my memory deceives me The Hobbit mentions giants of a rather hostile and violent kind living in the Misty Mountains; and there may be a vague echo of that idea in the description of the Fellowship's attempt on the pass of Caradhras (LotR II, 3, The Ring Goes South):

They heard eerie noises in the darkness round them. It may have been only a trick of the wind in the cracks and gullies of the rocky wall, but the sounds were those of shrill cries, and wild howls of laughter. Stones began to fall from the mountain-side, whistling over their heads, or crashing on the path beside them. [...]
[Boromir:] "Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us."
"I do call it the wind", said Aragorn. "But that does not make what you say untrue. There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have little love for those that go on two legs[...]"