POLLARDING TREES. 403 



fuel, and neither is to be supplied by the landlord 

 at such a ruinous subversion of present and future 

 benefit. I am not so silly as to enlarge upon the 

 beauty of what has been called " picturesque farm- 

 ing f but when we cast our eyes over the country, 

 and see such rows of dark, club-headed posts, we 

 cannot but remark upon the unsightly character they 

 present, and consider it neither laudable to deform 

 our beautiful country by the connivance, nor proper 

 attention to individual profit to allow the contilma- 

 tion of it. The ash, after this mutilation, in a few 

 years becomes flattened at the summit, moisture 

 lodges in it, and decay commences, the central 

 parts gradually mouldering away, though for many 

 years the sap-wood will throw out vigorous shoots 

 for the hatchet. The goat moth now too com- 

 mences its mordications, and the end is not distant. 

 But the wood of the ash appears in every stage 

 subject to injury : when in a dry state the weevils 

 mine holes through it ; when covered by its bark, 

 it gives harbour to an infinite variety of insects, 

 which are the appointed agents for the removal of 

 the timber : the ashen bar of a stile, or a post, we 

 may generally observe to be regularly scored by 

 rude lines diverging from a central stem, like a 

 trained fruit tree, by the meanderings of a little in- 

 sect (ips niger, &c.)^ being the passages of the crea- 

 tures feeding on the wood. 



There is one race of trees, the willow, very com- 

 mon about us, that is so universally subject to this 

 pollarding, for the purpose of providing stakes and 



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