THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
9 
Walking-sticks : How to Make Them. 
BY GEORGE EDWINSON. 
T most periods of our lives we dis- 
play a fondness for sticks. Even 
in the palmy days when vigorous 
manhood does not require a staff 
to support his tottering footsteps, he in- 
vents some other excuse as a reason for 
carrying a stick in his hand, and feels 
still more lonely in his lonely walk if he 
happens to have left the mute companion 
of his travels at home. A variety of tastes 
are displayed in the selection of walking- 
sticks— tastes not always governed by the 
necessities of the selector, nor by the 
fashion of the day, but sometimes by some 
peculiar idiosyncrasy of the individual. 
Hence, whilst some prefer a lithe holly 
stick, or hazel, others prefer ash or elm, 
others are content with nothing less than 
a stout oaken cudgel, and a son of Erin 
would revel in a tough little bit of black- 
thorn in preference to all other woods. 
Some again scorn our homely woods and 
will carry nothing commoner than a 
foreign cane or bamboo fitted with a head 
of gold or silver ; others prefer those with 
grotesquely-carved heads, and not a few 
take a pride in carrying a stick cut or 
pulled by their own hands from hedge, 
copse, or wood. But a stick thus pulled 
or cut is apt to betray the ignorance of its 
owner by its rough head, its cracked and 
scored shaft, its crookedness, its rough 
bark, or its unpolished condition. To 
meet the wants of those who would like 
to prepare such sticks for themselves, the 
following hints are given, and may not be 
unacceptable. 
Walking-sticks should not be cut or 
pulled in the spring later than the month 
of February nor earlier in the autumn 
than the month of October ; the best time 
of the year being from the first week in 
December to the last week in February. 
Sticks should be laid aside in only a 
moderately dry cool place, and should 
not be worked nor the bark taken off 
imtil they are half dry, then they are 
most supple and may be bent or straight- 
ened without injury. In laying by sticks 
to dry, the knots should not be trimmed 
close— in fact, it is best to only rough- 
trim the stick, leaving the spurs of 
branches and of roots on the stick fully 
an inch long. The following kinds of 
woods are pulled and cut for walking- 
sticks in addition to others not enumerated 
here. 
IZoZ^.— Sticks of this wood are found 
growing out from the side of older stems, 
and shooting up in nearly a straight line 
through the dense foliage above. Oc- 
casionally they may be cut with a cratch 
piece across the growing end, or with a 
crook or knob. These are the most valu- 
able. Luck may sometimes happen on a 
well-grown sapling in the deep wood, this 
should be pulled or dug up for the sake 
of its roots. Saplings and hedge sticks 
may often be found, from 3 to 4 feet long, 
with the top part to the length of a foot, 
from i to ^ inch in diameter ; these are 
not suitable for walking-sticks, but they 
make excellent whii> handles, and are used 
for this purpose by country teamsters. 
Holly sticks should only be rough- 
trimmed when green and put away in 
this state to season. They make tough, 
supple, and moderately heavy walking- 
sticks, and their closely grained w^ood ad- 
mits of the carver's skill being exercised 
on the knob, formed by the root and its 
rootlets. 
^s/i.— Kespectable sticks of this wood 
may sometimes be cut out of a hedge, or 
pulled from the side of an old stump- or 
pollard, but the quality of such sticks will 
not compare with that of sapling ash, 
pulled or dug up in some copse or wood. 
Sapling, or " ground " ash, as it is called, 
vies with holly for toughness and supple- 
ness, whilst sticks of equal size yield the 
palm to ash in point of stability, but to 
holly for durability. Hedge sticks of ash 
get brittle as they get dry and old, and 
the same remark applies to most sticks 
pulled from old stumps. Ash sticks must 
also be rough-trimmed and well seasoned 
before they are barked and polished. The 
wood and curiously formed root-knobs of 
ground ash will admit of excellent 
grotesque carving. 
Oak— This of all sticks is the most re- 
liable, and stout oaken cudgels are 
esteemed by most persons as some of the 
best props to failing legs, as well as the 
