TREE WILLOWS 89 



a peaty soil, with a subsoil oi clay, only attained 26 ft. 

 in height and had a girth of 24 in. at a foot from the 

 ground. These experiments show the class of soil on 

 which this willow gives the best results. 



On page 1520 of Loudon's Arboretum Britannicum 

 reference is made to a cutting planted by Mr. Brown 

 of Hetherset, Norfolk, chat in ten years became a tree 

 of 35 ft. in height, with a girth of 5, ft. The same 

 publication cites a twenty years' tree at Audley End, 

 Essex, which reached 53 ft. in height and 7 ft. 6 in. 

 in girth. 



In the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information 

 No. 8, 1907 (p. 311, No. L.), in an article by W. J. 

 Bean, Esq., on the Cricket Bat Willow, it is stated 

 that " No question in connection with profitable tree- 

 planting has roused greater interest in recent years 

 than that as to the kind of willow best adapted for the 

 manufacture of cricket bats. It has only attained 

 importance in recent times because it is only lately 

 that the supplies of the best bat willow have become 

 seriously limited, and that prices have risen in pro- 

 portion. At a sale of willows of Sir Walter Gilbey's 

 at Sawbridgeworth in February, 1906, the best bat 

 willow realised prices estimated to be equivalent to 

 75. per cubic foot. I have recently been informed by 

 the agent of a large estate in Essex that he had de- 

 clined an offer of 1500 for 100 of the best willow trees 

 on the estate, and Mr. John Shaw, of the well-known 

 firm of Shaw & Shrewsbury, Nottingham, last winter 

 offered 40 for a tree. When it is known that trees 

 have been known in favourable situations to reach a 

 saleable size in twelve years (having in that period 

 attained a girth of 50 in.) these prices show that there 

 is no timber so profitable at the present time as that 



