140 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



thirty years of age to yield 45 feet of 

 measurable timber, or at the rate of one 

 and a half cubic feet per annum. This 

 Willow will not arrive at its fullest size 

 and quality in undrained land, and it 

 grows freely on the slopes of exposed 

 hills ; indeed, there are few situations 

 in which it will not grow, differing in 

 this way from the White Willow, which 

 is more of a swamp and riverside tree. 



It may be asked, what use is the 

 timber of the Redwood Willow when 

 grown, and where will a market be 

 found for it? There is no wood in 

 greater demand than sound Willow ; it 

 is light, smooth, soft, tough, will take a 

 good polish, and does not easily burn. 

 It will bear more pounding and hard 

 knocks without splinter or injury than 

 any other known wood, and hence its 

 use for cricket bats, and, whenever it 

 can be obtained, for the floats of paddle 

 steamers, u strouds" of water-wheels, 

 break-blocks for luggage and coal 

 trucks, the sides and bottoms of carts 

 and barrows. To the wood-turner it is 

 almost invaluable, and were it grown as 

 timber, and obtainable, it would be used 

 for very many purposes to which foreign 

 timber is now applied. It is not every 

 tree that brings the best price, but single 

 trees, sound and fit for making cricket 

 bats, have been known to fetch, in Es- 

 sex, as much as £60 each. A corre- 

 spondent of Farm and Home (J. W. R.) 

 writes: "There is an old rhyme anent 

 the two gateposts standing as rivals ; on 

 one was written 4 1 am heart of Oak, 

 I am very stout'; on the other, 1 1 am 

 Willow red, I'll wear you out.' I have 

 had the two kinds of posts stand long 



side by side on my farms and neither 

 showed more decay than the other. 

 Red Willow is valuable where timber 

 has to bear a good bit of jarring. It 

 springs and rebounds to a marked de- 

 gree without being in the least the worse 

 for it, and endures all kinds of weather 

 on land, and salt and other water off the 

 land, better than, perhaps, any other 

 timber. It would, no doubt, be used in 

 shipping more than it is if it could be 

 got of sufficient size." There is awood 

 of some six or eight acres of this Willow 

 on the banks of the Lea at Stanboro', 

 near Hatfield, the effect of which is 

 beautiful at any season. As this Willow 

 maybe considered one of the neglected 

 trees, if any of our readers could tell us 

 anything of its use and prevalence in 

 any parts of the eastern country we 

 should be very glad to hear from them. 



Mathieu, in his cc Flore Forestiere," 

 says nothing as to its value, but there is 

 a spirited book by Patrick Mathew on 

 " Naval Timber and Arboriculture " 

 (Edinburgh, 1831), in which is an 

 interesting account of it : — 



" This kind of Willow, once very common 

 in the alluvial parts of Scotland before the 

 introduction of the white and the Bedford 

 Willows, is probably the most profitable tim- 

 ber that can be planted in such soils. It was 

 our district's maxim that ' the Willow will 

 purchase the horse before any other timber 

 will purchase the saddle,' on account of its 

 very quick growth and the value of its timber. 

 It delights in the rich easy clay of our pows 

 (the old Scottish term for those sluggish, 

 natural drains of our alluvial districts), throw- 

 ing out its febrile roots in matted-like abund- 

 ance under the water ; it also flourishes in the 

 more sandy, gravelly alluvium, by the sides of 

 rivers and streams, which does not become 

 too dry in summer. 



