DECEMBER 163 



The best of the biroh tops are cut into pea- 

 sticks, a clever, slanting cut with the hand -bill 

 leaving them pointed and ready for use. Through- 

 out the copse are " stools " of Spanish chestnut, cut 

 about once in five years. From this we get good 

 straight stakes for Dahlias and Hollyhocks, also bean- 

 poles; while the rather straight-branched boughs are 

 cut into branching sticks for Michaelmas Daisies, and 

 special lengths are got ready for various kinds of 

 plants — Chrysanthemums, Lilies, Pseonies, and so on. 

 To provide all this in winter, when other work is 

 slack or impossible, is an important matter in the 

 economy of a garden, for all gardeners know how 

 distressing and harassing it is to find themselves with- 

 out the right sort of sticks or stakes in summer, 

 and what a troublesome job it then is to have to 

 look them up and cut them, of indifferent quality, 

 out of dry faggots. By the plan of preparing all in 

 winter no precious time is lost, and a tidy withe-bound 

 bundle of the right sort is always at hand. The rest 

 of the rough spray and small branching stuff is made 

 up into faggots to be chopped up for fire-lighting; 

 the country folk still use the old word "bavin" for 

 faggots. The middle-sized branches — antyhing between 

 two inches and six inches in diameter — are what the 

 woodmen call " top and lop " ; these are also cut into 

 convenient lengths, and are stacked in the barn, to 

 be cut into billets for next year's fires in any wet or 

 frosty weather, when outdoor work is at a standstill. 



