82 PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 



treated will be of a darker color than those peeled in the 

 spring after the sap has started, owing to the fact that 

 the wood is stained by the coloring matter in the bark, 

 which is dissolved and taken up by the wood. These 

 dark-colored rods, however, make the most valuable 

 baskets. Willows should never be cut when the sap is 

 flowing, as the material is poor, being too soft and turning 

 black when peeled. Besides, they injure the plants by 

 robbing them of their yearly supply of root nourishment. 

 The cutting should always be done carefully, and in such 

 a manner as not to split or mutilate the stocks. The 

 peeling is done by pulling the rods through a springy 

 wooden fork, shaped like a clothes-pin, but larger, and 

 with blunt edges inside. This presses against the rod 

 and loosens the bark in strands without injuring the wood. 

 The rod is afterwards dried in the open air and put up 

 in bundles of fifty pounds for the market. 



Peeled rods keep much better than those left with 

 the bark on, and this is said to be the most profitable 

 way in which to market the product. The Willow is 

 generally a healthy plant, and rather free from insect 

 enemies under ordinary conditions; but when grown 

 in large groups of pure Willows, it is occasionally attacked 

 by rust and also by insects. The leaf-eating insects 

 are easily destroyed by Paris green, used in the same way 

 as is common for the destruction of the potato-bug. 



The Osier Willow, which has proven most productive 

 of the long, slender shoots so desirable for basket-making, 

 is the Salix purpurea, and at the Minnesota Experiment 

 Station this has frequently made a growth of six feet 

 long in a season. It should be understood by any one 

 who undertakes this line of work that long, slender rods 

 are desirable, and that one rod six feet long may be worth 

 as much as several that are not over three or four feet 

 long. Almost any Willow may be used for making the 



