316 



Swamp Willow. 



Vol. VIII 



Swamp l^illow-—{Sal€x discolor.) 



An important and extensive employment 

 has grown out of the use and cultivation of 

 the willow. Great quantities are imported, 

 while we see it growing wild in swamps 

 and along water courses, from one end of 

 the United States to the other, and almost 

 untouched, although if collccled in its na- 

 tive state, or cultivated as in Europe and 

 some parts of this country, it would afford a 

 profitable occupation to the industrious, at 

 seasons of the year when other work would 

 not interfere. 



Hoops tor casks, are made of willow in 

 Europe, as we see in the wine casks of 

 France and Portugal. Irish potatoes are 

 imported in hampers of the s.itne mnteriai, 

 and champagne in willow baskets. Bottles 

 and demijohns come to us covered with wil- 

 low, and willow is cut and dried to be con- 

 verted into charcoal, which makes a better 

 article than any other wood tor the manu- 

 facture of c'unpowdcr. 



But of all the uses to which willow is ap- 

 plied, both here and in Europe, tliat of 

 making baskets of all kinds, and many arti- 

 cles of wooden ware, is the most extensive. 

 It gives employment to many, and might to 

 many more, if our own resources were hus- 

 banded, and our own raw material more 

 generally sought, cultivated and used. 



Willow and willow baskets are both im- 

 ported from Holland and France. Most of 

 the baskets manufactured in this country, 

 are made from the imported willow, but 

 some of American growth is also convert- 

 ed into useful articles, as will hereafter 

 be shown. The imported willow is of the 

 osier kind, long, slender and flexible. It 

 comes in bundles, four feet in circumference, 

 or sixteen inches in diameter, and of three 

 lengths. It is sold in assorted parcels, and 

 the purchaser is required to take a portion 

 of each length. The smallest size is from 

 three to four feet long; the middle size fiv^e 

 to six, and the third size seven feet or over. 

 The present price of such willow, free of 

 bark and in good condition, in the city of 

 New York, is eight cents per pound. The 

 writer has known it to sell at $1 to $1 25 

 by the bundle. 



Immense quantities of willow baskets are 

 imported from France, but they are all of 

 the smaller and finer kinds of wooden ware 

 made of split willow. Our artizans cannot 

 compete with the French in the manufac- 

 ture of these kinds of willow work, on ac- 

 count of the very low wages in France, or 

 other cause. There, much of the fine and 

 janey work is executed by females, while 

 here, willow baskets are wholly made by 



males, who require higher wages than males 

 or females in European countries. Hence 

 it is, that France and Germany have pos- 

 session of the American market in the sup- 

 ply and sale of fine and fancy willow- ware, 

 which can be manufactured here by Ameri- 

 can artists, but they are undersold by foreign 

 workmen. There is perhaps another reason 

 for this state of things. Some years ago, a 

 French merchant now retired from business, 

 informed the writer that lie could not con- 

 ceive how the French willow baskets could 

 be imported and sold so cheap, unless the 

 government was defrauded in the duties. 



But on the other hand, our countrymen 

 have exclusive possession of the manufac- 

 ture of the large, coarse, and bulky articles 

 made of willow, which cannot be imported 

 on account of the space they occupy, and 

 the amount of freight such space would 

 command. The greater part of the willow 

 they use however, is that imported from 

 Holland and France. The trade of making 

 willow-ware is an extensive one, and is 

 principally carried on in our large cities; 

 though of late, it is extending to other parts 

 of the country where the native raw mate- 

 rial is abundant and easily procured, or 

 where this and the foreign varieties are cul- 

 tivated. 



Here then we have a trade, an occupation 

 for many of our countrymen, wjiich con- 

 sumes a great amount of raw material, 

 much of which might be supplied from indi- 

 genous growth, or from cultivated plants of 

 native and foreign varieties of willow. 

 There is much to encourage this under- 

 taking, were it more generally known how 

 easily it may be accomplished. The follow- 

 ing information was obtained from a person 

 who has a plantation of willows on Staten 

 Island. 



Mr. John Reed, of Southfield, in Rich- 

 mond county, and State of New York, is an 

 Englishman by birth, and has followed the 

 business of cultivating the native and for- 

 eign willows for thirty years or more in this 

 country. The farm he' cultivates, contained 

 a useless bog of an acre or more, which by 

 ditching and draining, he has converted into 

 a willow plantation, from which he reaps an 

 annual harvest much greater than from an 

 equal amount of land on the best part of his 

 farm. He has the native willow at the 

 head of this article, the Pennsylvania, the 

 Welsh, the Dutch and other varieties which 

 he imported from England. He has another 

 plantation of willows in the adjoining town- 

 ship of Westfield. 



Mr. Reed has at different periods imported 

 fifteen varieties of willow of the osier kind 

 from England, but the best kinds raised 



