*ROM POLLARDING TREES. 397 



Bat 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 insect (ips 

 niger, Sec.), being the passages of the creatures 

 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 

 hurdles for the farm, that probably few persons 

 have ever seen a willow tree. At any rate a sight 

 of one grown unmutilated from the root is a rare 

 occurrence. The few that I have seen constituted 

 trees of great beauty ; but as the willow, from the 

 nature of its wood, can never be valuable as a 

 timber tree, perhaps by topping it we obtain its best 

 services. In the county of Gloucester there are 

 several remarkable trees of different species now 

 growing, but I am not acquainted with any greater 

 natural curiosity of this sort than an uncommonly 

 fine willow tree in the meadows on the right of the 

 Spa-house at Gloucester. There are two of them ; 

 the species I forget, but one tree is so healthy and 

 finely grown, that it deserves every attention, and 



