Book II. PRODUCTS OF TREES. 589 



or a change of seasons, cause them to disappear. Trees properly cultivated and managed, 

 generally overcome such enemies. The hare is well known to be injurious to young 

 trees, and especially to laburnums, by gnawing off their bark. Coating their stems with 

 dung and urine, fresh from the cow-house, is said to be an etifectual remedy. It may be 

 put on with a brush to the height of two feet ; a barrow load will suffice for a hundred 

 trees, with stems of three or four inches in diameter ; and its virtue, after laid on, endures 

 at least two years. {Bull, in Cald. Hort. Mem. iv. 1 90. ) 



Sect. VIII. Of the Products of Trees and their Prqmration for Use or Sale. 



3734. The ordinary products of trees made use of in the arts are leaves, prunings, or 

 spray, thinnings, seeds, flexible shoots, bark, branches, roots, and trunks. Trees also 

 afford sap for wine and sugar, and extract for dyeing ; but these products are of too 

 accidental or refined a nature for our present purpose. 



3735. The leaves and spray of trees when gathered before they begin to decay, maybe 

 given to cattle either in their fresh state or dried and stacked up for winter use, as 

 is practised in various countries. In this country, however, leaves and spray, as the 

 clippings of hedges and small prunings, are only used as manure ; or as a substitute 

 for tanners' bark in gardens. 



3736. The thinnings, when not beyond a suitable age, and taken up properly, and at 

 a proper season, may be planted in other situations, or as single trees and groups ; or they 

 may be used as hoops, hop-poles, poles for garden training, for fencing, for props in 

 coaleries ; and for a great variety of purposes; those, whose barks are useful for tanning, 

 should not be cut down, or rooted up till May, but the others at any time during winter. 

 It is common to sort them into lots, according to their kind or size; and to faggot up the 

 spray for fuel, besom stuff, or for distilling for bleacher's liquid. 



3737. The seeds of trees in general cannot be considered of much use beyond that of 

 continuing the species. The seeds of the oak, beech, and sweet chestnut, however, are 

 valuable for feeding swine, and where they abound may either be swept together after they 

 drop, and carried away and preserved dry in lofts or cellars for that purpose ; or if other 

 circumstances are favorable, swine may be driven under the trees to collect them. These 

 and other seeds, as the haw and holly, are also eaten by deer. The seeds of the trees 

 mentioned, and of ail the resinous tribe, are in general demand by the nurserymen for 

 the purposes of propagation. The seeds of almost all other trees and shrubs are also in 

 limited or occasional demand ; or may be collected for private sowing. They generally 

 ripen late in the season, and are to be collected in the end of autumn or beginning of 

 winter, with the exception of a few, such as the elm, poplar, willow, and one or two 

 others, which ripen their seeds in May and June. 



3738. In osier grounds, willows produce flexible shoots, and whether intended for the 

 basket-maker or cooper, should not be cut till the second season after planting, in order 

 to strengthen the stools; but by the third autumn the crop will be fit for the basket- 

 maker, and in the fourth, plantations intended for the cooper (hoops requiring the growth 

 of two years) will be seady. The seasons for cutting are November and March ; after 

 the former period the wounds are apt to be injured by frost, and after the latter the sap 

 is too far advanced ; some is lost by bleeding, and the buds are developed too suddenly 

 to admit of proper strength in the shoots. The cut should be made within three buds of 

 the point whence the shoot issued, in a sloping direction, and the section on the under- 

 side. In cutting hoop-willows, the swell at the bottom of the shoot only should be left, 

 that being furnished with abundance of buds for future growth. After being cut, the 

 hoops are trimmed from any side-shoots, and tied up in bundles of a hundred, of six 

 scores each, which, in 1820, sold for from four shillings to five shillings a bundle. The 

 willows are sorted into three sizes, and tied in bundles two feet in circumference, within 

 a foot of the lower ends. When to be peeled, they are immediately after cutting set on 

 their thick ends in standing water, a few inches deep, and there they remain till the sap 

 ascends freely, which is commonly by the end of the succeeding May. " The apparatus' 

 for peeling is simply two round rods of iron, nearly half an inch thick, sixteen inches 

 long, and tapering a little upwards, welded together at the one end which is sharpened, 

 so as that it may be easily thrust down into the ground. When thus placed in a piece of 

 firm ground, the peeler sits down opposite to it, and takes the willow in the right hand 

 by the small end, and puts a foot or more of the great end into the instrument, the prongs 

 of which he presses together with the left hand, and with the right draws the willow 

 towards him ; by whicii operation the bark will at once be separated from the wood : 

 the small end is then treated in the same manner, and the peeling is completed. Good 

 willows peeled in the above manner, have been sold for some seasons past, at from 

 six shillings and sixpence to seven shillings the bundle of four feet in circumference. 

 After being peeled, they will keep in good condition for a long time, till a proper 

 market be found." 



