238 
Willows and their Cultivation. 
had the bark stripped off at once whilst green and sappy, so that 
the white wood is exposed, and thus prepared it is worked into 
pattern. The buff are those which have been boiled when in 
a brown state unpeeled, and the colouring-matter in the bark 
has been thus given to the underlying wood, which assumes 
a buff tinge, though the effect is now often secured by dyeing 
the white rods to the required tint. 
The stronger rods are used for uprights and corners of hampers 
and baskets; branches of the tree kinds are used as stakes, 
handles of garden tools, implements, &c., whilst the timber is 
excellent for stone carts and barrows, and is used also for sides 
and bottom boards of trucks, brake blocks for railway wagons, 
mills, &c. In the domain of sport the cricket-bat is made of 
the willow. In building construction the wood is used for 
purposes where lightness and durability are desirable features. 
There are many other purposes to which willows may be put and 
are put, which cannot be classified as associated exactly with 
either commerce or trade, but are more or less accidental, as, 
for instance, the lining of the submerged banks of artificially 
formed waterways, and it is noticeable that during late years 
the increasing demand has been steadier, and in some districts 
difficulty has been experienced in getting sufficient osiers for the 
purposes of manufacture to which they have been applied. 
Cultivated Varieties of Willows. 
There is some difficulty in giving, under accurate botanical 
name, the identical varieties most used in particular districts 
and for particular work, inasmuch as the willows employed by the 
wicker-workers carry local names rather than scientific titles. 
In some cases the name is distinctly geographical, as, for instance, 
the name Dee Willow, here applied to the salices found growing 
along the margins of the river Dee, in the upper reaches, by 
some of the basket-makers who cut their rods from the plants 
found in this district. Probably at first the local name Dee 
Willow would include the several species found in the locality, 
but, gradually, the basket-makers would come to reject the kinds 
least suitable for their purpose and confine themselves to the 
use of the one kind which they found best adapted to their re- 
quirements, so that the Dee Willow is now merely the common 
osier used for making agricultural hampers and baskets, employed 
largely in the county for the transport of market-garden produce 
and for early potatoes and other farm crops grown for market. 
Another instance of the mutation of words and change of idea, 
in a similar way, has recently come under my notice. Amongst 
