WOODLAND WORK AND WORKING PLANS 189 



good hurdle-maker to make the merchants' purchase a 

 profitable one. 



The life of the average hurdle-maker through the summer 

 months is almost an entirely open-air one. He often works 

 many miles from home, and possibly several miles from 

 civilised habitations, and in such cases he finds it more 

 convenient to camp out in the woods, and on the site of his 

 work, than to take lodgings and tramp to and fro morning 

 and night. In such cases he rigs up a hut in some sheltered 

 corner, or lies rough in some convenient shed or stable, and 

 dispenses with the usual accessories to the toilet and ward- 

 robe of a gentleman of fashion. If his aspirations run in the 

 direction of a substantial style of residence, he takes a leaf 

 out of the book of his remote ancestors, and erects a hut, 

 which, according to the highest authorities, is an exact 

 counterpart of those used by the Britons before the Eoman 

 invasion. A few poles are placed, end up, on the ground, 

 brought together at the top, and the inter-spaces bridged over 

 with rods or split stakes. An old tarpaulin, turf, or fern is 

 then thrown over the whole, and the floor made warm and 

 dry with straw or fern. In a hut of this kind an average 

 hurdle-maker will cheerfully spend a month or two, making 

 frequent excursions to the nearest village for provisions, and 

 calls at the public-house for refreshment and recreation. 

 A thrifty man, living in this fashion, and working long hours 

 and earning from 25s. to 30s. per week, can, in the course 

 of a few years, accumulate a nice little sum. But, as often as 

 not, a hard-worked summer is succeeded by a more or less 

 idle winter, and, at the return of spring, little if any of the 

 previous year's earnings are left. 



The hurdle-maker's equipment is not an expensive one, 

 and his mode of working is as follows : — A block of wood, 

 bored with auger holes about 8 inches apart, rests on the 

 ground. Into these holes are stuck the pointed uprights 

 between and round which the rods are twisted, and which the 

 hurdler has sorted and split down to the required size and 

 pliancy. Placing the end of a rod between two of the centre 

 uprights, and as near the ground as possible, the rod is 

 plaited in and out until the outside upright is reached. 

 It has then to be twisted sharply round as in making a 



