418 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



lops off all the branches on each tree as high up as he can con- 

 veniently reach. These he ties together with a bircb, willow, or 

 hazel wand into good-sized bundles. These bundles are desig- 

 nated brush-faggots, and they realise from three shillings to four 

 shillings per hundred. "While proceeding with this operation, he 

 also clears the ground of all the smaller stems, sorting out as he 

 goes on pea-sticks, stakes, and binders, the latter being utilised 

 for the construction of the wicker-work fences so common in the 

 south. The next operation is the objectionable one already 

 referred to of scraping the leaf-mould, etc., into heaps. The 

 thorough manner in which he does this part of his business is 

 apt to make one sigh for legislation that would make such 

 robbery of the soil a punishable crime. Having literally cleared 

 the ground, the next job is the felling of the trees. Although 

 an expert axeman, the wood-buyer's work with that implement 

 is decidedly unscientific. "With right and left downward strokes 

 of his broad-faced tool he fells his tree, throws it aside, and goes 

 on to the next. There is no such item in his programme as the 

 dressing of the stool, in which is frequently left a V-shaped 

 cavity, splendidly adapted for holding water to rot the stock. 

 After cutting a number of trees, he proceeds to dress them and 

 sort them out in lots according to their sizes, thus: — 11 feet, 

 1 2 feet, 1 4 feet, and 1 6 feet long. The tops, thick branches, and 

 smaller stems that are unsuitable for hop-poles, fencing stakes, 

 binders, or barrel hoops, are cut into lengths of from 3 to 4 

 feet, and are tied into bundles for fuel. These are termed house- 

 faggots, and realise from twenty-four to twenty-six shillings per 

 hundred. "When the bark has been shaved off the poles — a work 

 which is frequently done by women and children with rough 

 draw-knives — they are ready for sale. Some proprietors, how- 

 ever, have the wood-cutting done by their own men, the prepared 

 poles being afterwards sold by auction in convenient lots. This 

 is a decidedly better arrangement, as it gives the proprietor who 

 adopts it complete control of the work, it enables him to sell 

 his poles direct to the hop-grower, and it keeps irresponsible 

 plunderers out of the woods. 



At two recent sales of hop-poles which the writer attended, 

 the following were the average prices of the poles he saw dis- 

 posed of : — 



