PREPARATION AND MARKETING 73 



of special goods are forced to purchase from rod mer- 

 chants. The profits of these middlemen might just as 

 well be obtained by the growers. 



There are no established markets for willows in this 

 country. In the West of England auction sales are 

 held annually, when fields are sold at prices which have 

 realised up to 19 los. per acre in the autumn of 1917, 

 the purchaser to cut and harvest the crop. The average 

 over a considerable area worked out at about 18. Also 

 here and elsewhere the buying is in the hands of 

 merchants and manufacturers, who regularly visit the 

 willow-growing centres towards the end of the growing 

 period to judge the value of the crop when standing 

 and to purchase any dry material which the growers 

 may have in stock. Frequently sales are effected by 

 the forwarding of samples. Sewage-farm grown willows 

 are often advertised for sale by tender. 



If, as is invariably the case, some part of every crop 

 especially the outside portion of the bed is inferior 

 or rough, it will be found best to lay such material on 

 one side for brown, or, if peeled, tie it up by itself and 

 sell according to its value. 



The export business, at one time of considerable 

 value, has been much neglected in this country. The 

 growers in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, whose 

 crops twenty years ago were frequently shipped as 

 white, have for years sold their crops as green before 

 Christmas for buffing. Consequently very limited 

 quantities have been available for export. This trade 

 has been absorbed by the Belgians, Dutch, Germans, 

 and French. The export business has since- the war 

 largely recovered itself, and if attention is given to 

 the proper grading of qualities, there is every prospect 

 of the trade being retained. 



