HIGH WOODS, COPSES, ETC. 291 



copse into highwoods when this form of crop- 

 ping seems the more advantageous. Sometimes, 

 indeed, coppice still more than manages to 

 pay its way, even though in the great majority 

 of cases the fall in the amount obtainable per 

 square pole or 'lug' of the coppice hags has 

 made this system far from so profitable a form 

 of crop as it used to be. And yet, on suitable 

 land, and in exceptional cases, some forms of 

 coppice can yield larger returns than any other 

 kind of woodland crop. This is notably so in 

 the case of the osier-holts of the fen districts. 



There are three chief kinds of osiers or basket 

 willows, the Common Osier (Sa/ix viminalis}, 

 with white silky hairs on its leaves ; the smooth- 

 leaved Laurel Osier (S. triandra), and the Purple 

 Osier (S. purpurea\ so called from the colour of 

 its anthers at the time of flowering. But the 

 varieties and the crosses between these are almost 

 innumerable. In the fen country the cost of 

 ploughing or fallowing and trenching land for an 

 osier-holt, and of purchasing and planting the 

 'sets,' runs from about 16 to 13 an acre. 

 The planting is done in February or March with 

 slips of two-year-old wood from 1 6 to 1 8 inches 



