1885.] WOODLANDS IiY SUSSEX AND KENT. 341 



mouse-traps ; alder and dogwood chiefly for gunpowder ; bircli and 

 liazel, with other pliable woods, are excellent for hoops, hurdles, 

 wattles, bavins, faggots, thatchwood, and butchers' skewers; and 

 birch, particularly for brooms. 



Large quantities of wood and timber are sent to London, where 

 hundreds of truck-loads of willow are fashioned yearly into such 

 small articles as pill-boxes or puff-boxes. The timber-yards on 

 the coast are great magazines for storing both large timber and 

 coppice-wood growth, and in the workshops, which are frequently 

 associated with them, the business of planking, cleaving, wattle- 

 making, and shingle-cutting is conducted. The making of hoops 

 and hurdles is carried on everywhere througliout the Weald, and, 

 in order to save carriage, a great deal of this kind of work is 

 done in the woods, on the spot where the underwood is cut. Most 

 of the farm labourers are skilled in the labour of the woods. The 

 writer has known many laliourers who earned high wages the greater 

 part of the year by various kinds of work, including cutting under- 

 wood, and sorting it into hop poles, hoops, faggots, and various 

 other bundles, such as underwood is usually divided into. All this 

 kind of work is done by task, and generally in the winter months ; 

 and, at other periods of the year, the same men hoe turnips or corn 

 by task, and do any other kind of farm work, often for the same 

 master all the year, and always by task when possible. Some of 

 the same class of skilled men thatch the stacks of hay or corn, and 

 in every district there are hurdle-makers who weave the rods of 

 hazel, birch, oak, and ash into these excellent hurdles which are 

 largely used for sheepfolds in the wooded parts of Sussex, Surrey, 

 and Hants. Whatever reasons may be assigned for the special 

 industries and exceptionally good management of the woods of 

 Sussex and some other southern counties, there is no doubt that 

 Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Berks, and Hants offer excellent examples of 

 profitable wood-growing, and have done so since the days of Arthur 

 Young. In these times of depressed agriculture, therefore, and in 

 those wide districts where the woodlands are at present too gene- 

 rally neglected, land proprietors might study with advantage the 

 growth of underwood for the various purposes just noticed, on such 

 estates as those of the Earl of Egmont at Cowdray, Lord Lecon- 

 lield at Petworth, the Earl of Darnley at Cobham, or the Earl of 

 Carnarvon at Highclere. 



The Cowdray estate at Midhurst comprises several thousand acres 

 of woods, offering useful lessons in management, in regard to which 

 I can bring forward evidence, derived both from personal experience 

 and from a statement kindly prepared for me by Mr. Tallant, Lord 

 Egmont's agent, when I was preparing a report of the agriculture 



