NOTES AND QUERIES. 127 
THE VALUE OF WILLOW TIMBER. 
In the columns of the timber trade journals particulars have 
been given of some extraordinarily high prices which have 
recently been obtained for willow timber suitable for cricket bat- 
making. As is well known, there is no other wood which, for 
lightness, toughness, and resilience, can approach willow for this 
purpose; and for the best bats the white, or Huntingdon, willow 
(Salix alba) is that which is most prized, the timber of the crack 
and Bedford willows (S. fragilis and S. Russelliana) being what 
is principally used for inferior bats. These prices ranged from 
5s. to ros. 6d. per cubic foot, and in one instance, on the pro- 
perty of Sir Walter Gilbey, at Bishop Stortford, 11s. 6d. was 
obtained, a figure which eclipses many of those given for fancy 
foreign hardwoods, and which is at least double what is generally 
obtained for the most valuable of our British hardwoods, except- 
ing perhaps an occasional large walnut. But to fetch prices like 
these, the timber must be clean and fast-grown, and it must not 
be more than about thirty years old. Slow-grown timber, rough 
timber such as is grown in hedge-rows, or that of old pollarded 
or defective trees, is quite useless for the purpose, the 
fibre of the wood being much too hard and brittle. The best 
timber for the purpose, too, can be grown on land which is, as a 
rule, of little value agriculturally,—that is, land which is too 
moist for grain and root crops, and which it might be difficult to 
drain sufficiently in order to make it pay under these, and which 
otherwise might be mere waste. Ase ie 
A New TIMBER. 
To the long list of timbers which we import, yet another has 
to be added. This is camphor-wood (Ciznamomum Camphora, 
Nees), which is now, for the first time, being brought in quantity 
from Formosa. On account of its excellent sanitary properties, 
the wood is said to be especially valuable for constructive work, 
such as flooring, wainscoting, and so forth, in hospitals, etc. 
As DMRS 
