NORFOLK SOCIETY. 475 



Culture and Harvesting of Basket Willow, which is now 

 about to be published by the author of this essay. And in 

 this essay, I shall attempt only to say what is necessary about 

 the practicability of cultivating basket willow in this country? 

 and the encouragement they have who will undertake to culti- 

 vate and harvest it according to the rules laid down in the 

 Treatise referred to. 



From what has been said by lecturers and writers on the 

 subject, many persons have been led to believe that all low, 

 wet lands, are suitable for the cultivation of willow. This is 

 a mistake. By such wrong views, many have been led to 

 plant willow on land that was not suited for the purpose, and 

 have lost all the labor and money expended in the experiment. 

 Others have failed to make the cultivation of the plant profita- 

 ble, by following the views of those who imagine that willow 

 of any kind can be worked up into ware. Of this last class, 

 many have asked me to buy their willow, who were greatly 

 disappointed to hear that I could make no profitable use of it. 

 Of the other class, I know of one instance where all the time 

 and money were lost which had been expended in planting 

 twenty acres. 



The natural soil for willow is not sand, gravel, clay, nor 

 peat. Willow will grow in any of these soils for a time, but 

 not to perfection, nor to profit. If willow be planted in clay, 

 the plantation will not be healthy, nor will it ever be of that 

 quality which is necessary for basket making. In some in- 

 stances the plant will look promising for a few years, but 

 before the cultivator has half realized a full reward for his 

 labors, it will become diseased, and stunted, and covered with 

 yellow rings. If it be planted in blue clay, nothing can pre- 

 serve it alive five years ; for generally, in half that time, the 

 plant will be burned at the root by the action of the clay. 

 The same effect is produced on the willow by the black mud 

 that collects in stagnant water. 



Willow will grow well and fair by the side of running 

 streams, on meadow land, and on the flats by the side of rivers, 

 if there be sufficient suitable soil into which its roots can 

 strike and by which the plant can be sustained in dry weather. 

 But when clay is too near the surface, the willow will become 

 diseased, and when the land is dry, it will die. 



