DECEMBER 167 



twisting with both hands till the fibres are wrenched 

 open and the withe is ready to spring back and wind 

 upon itself. With this he binds his two posts together, 

 so that they stand perfectly rigid. On this he cleaves 

 the poles, beginning at the top. The tool is a small 

 one-handed adze with a handle like a hammer. A 

 rod is usually cleft in two, so that it is only shaved 

 on one side ; but sometimes a pole of Chestnut, a very 

 quick-growing wood, is large enough to cleave into 

 eight, and when the wood is very clean and straight 

 they can sometimes get two lengths of fourteen feet 

 out of a pole. 



The brake is a strong flat-shaped post of oak set 

 up in the ground to lean a little away from the work- 

 man. It stands five and a half feet out of the ground, 

 A few inches from its upper end it has a shoulder cut 

 in it which acts as the fulcrum for the cross-bar that 

 supports the pole to be shaved, and that leans down 

 towards the man. The relative position of the two 

 parts of tne brake reminds one of the mast and yard 

 of a lateen-rigged boat. The bar is nicely balanced 

 by having a hazel withe bound round a groove at its 

 upper short end, about a foot beyond the fulcrum, 

 while the other end of the withe is tied round a heavy 

 bit of log or stump that hangs clear of the ground and 

 just balances the bar, so that it see-saws easily. The 

 cleft rod that is to be shaved Ues along the bar, and 

 an iron pin that passes through the head of the brake 

 just above the point where the bar rides over its 



