62 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
9 
for comparison. What, then, can the rambling nature-lover hope 
to do with the Willows he comes across one at a time, without 
much chance of comparing? He must be content to follow the 
“ lumpers,” who group a number of these uncertain forms under 
the name of a species to which they have evident relationship. 
When he has mastered the distinctions between these aggregate 
species, it will be early enough to attempt the segregation of the 
forms and varieties under each. 
In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, 
but a large number of the examples met with in our rambles 
have been so altered for commercial reasons as to be more 
grotesque than beautiful. It is not the timber-man who is 
responsible this time, for a pollard Willow, though it produces a 
shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable for basket-rods, lets 
in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood is more or less 
decayed and worthless. Only four of our native Willows can be 
regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the 
Crack Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the 
Poplars, their growth is very rapid, and their wood is con- 
sequently light, but it has the advantage of Poplar wood in being 
tougher, and therefore serving for purposes where Poplar is of no 
value. In the present day the growers of straight-boled Willows 
find their best market among the makers of cricket-bats. A good 
deal of it is also cut into thin strips for plaiting into chip-hats 
and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in extensive riverside 
beds for the production of long pliant shoots for the basket- 
weavers ; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really 
stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose 
leading shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts 
of our coast where the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a 
regular supply of such shoots for weaving into “ pots ” and 
“ hullies ” is a necessity, and a “ withy bed ” will usually be found 
on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace halfway up 
the cliffs. 
k 
