556 PLANTATIONS OF OSIERS. \_App. T. 



especially as fewer shoots are required in the present 

 case. We are decidedly hostile to the barbarous cus- 

 tom not uncommonly practised by coopers in cutting 

 hoops from the stools. Under the idea of saving the 

 hoops from being split, they hack them off downwards, 

 and thus the under part left upon the stool is split into 

 many pieces, to the manifest injury of the plant. 



It may be useful here to remark, that osiers in the 

 peeled state are more fit to be kept to wait a market 

 than if left with the bark on ; and they never fail to pro- 

 duce a greater return in the peeled state, after paying for 

 the labour of peeling, than they do as they are cut from 

 the stools. 



The operation of peeling is very simple, and may be 

 done by infirm people, or by women, at so much a 

 bundle. 



The way to prepare the willows for peeling is as fol- 

 lows. Immediately alter cutting them, set them on 

 their ends into standing water, a few inches deep, and 

 allow them to remain in that situation till the growth 

 begins to ascend freely, which will probably be by the 

 end of May. They are then ready to p#rt with the 

 bark. 



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 ea- 

 fsily 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 

 ror ards him ; by v-Jrich operation the bark will at once 



be 



