DECEMBER 169 



hoops, or thirty pairs, as they call them, of fourteen 

 feet, are a great weight to be kept together by four 

 slight hazel bands. 



In this industry there is a useful by-product in 

 the shavings, or chips as they call them. They are 

 eighteen inches to two feet long, and are made up 

 into small faggots or bundles and stacked up for six 

 months to a year to dry, and then sell readily at two- 

 pence a bundle to cut up for fire-lighting. They also 

 make a capital thatch for sheds, a thatch nearly a foot 

 thick, warm in winter, and cool in summer, and durable, 

 for if well made it will last for forty years. I got a 

 clever old thatcher to make me a hoop-chip roof for 

 the garden shed ; it was a long job, and he took his 

 time (although it was piece - work), preparing and 

 placing each handful of chips as carefully as if he 

 was making a wedding bouquet. He was one of the 

 old sort — no scamping of work for him ; his work was 

 as good as he could make it, and it was his pride and 

 delight. The roof was prepared with strong laths 

 nailed horizontally across the rafters as if for tiling, 

 but farther apart; and the chips, after a number of 

 handfuls had been duly placed and carefully poked 

 and patted into shape, were bound down to the laths 

 with soft tarred cord guided by an immense iron needle. 

 The thatching, as in all cases of roof-covering, begins 

 at the eaves, so that each following layer laps over 

 the last. Only the ridge has to be of straw, because 

 straw can be bent over ; the chips are too rigid. When 



