Characteristics of Felled Willow Timber. 23 
suitable soil, would differ, the sap wood hardening and redden- 
ing sooner ; and in quite unsuitable soils, the heart would turn 
a much deeper red, and the next change — that of decay — would 
soon ensue. 
Cricketers are rather divided in their opinion as to the 
colour desirable in the cricket bat, some preferring the salmon 
colour and others the white. At the present moment the white 
bat has the preference and commands a better price. The salmon 
coloured bats, being made from the heart wood, are probably 
heavier and therefore in this respect inferior. The makers 
occasionally buy the Salix fragilis , or open bark, and they 
are sometimes inconsistent enough, while condemning this class 
of tree, to say that some of the open bark bats are better than 
those made from Salix viridis , or close bark. But it seems 
that as a rule the open bark does not dry so readily as the close 
bark, and the bats are therefore heavier and of less value. 
All timber is bought for durability, and therefore practically 
the heart wood only is paid for — the sap wood becoming 
comparatively soon riddled by the wood-boring beetles 
(called wood worms) — and it is considerably heavier than the 
sap wood. In the willow alone the contrary is the case, since 
the question of durability scarcely arises, and the sap wood 
makes a lighter bat. It may be hoped that this theory is 
correct and that fashion will follow necessity, since the timber 
of the future must come from immature trees with a large 
proportion of sap. 
Trees grown in hedge-rows, being more in the open air 
and sunshine, are preferred to those grown in a wood, the 
timber being said to be tougher ; but at the same time this 
class of timber must be more disfigured by knots and stains 
from side shoots. The hedge-row trees grow more rapidly, 
and come sooner into the market, but owing to the knots and 
the more spreading branches only the lower part of the tree 
is saleable. 
Timber is frequently found to be “stainy,” that is, 
disfigured by dark-grey, cloudy, or mottled brown stains 
horizontally smeared across the grain. Some authorities believe 
this to be due to the class of trees, some to the nature of the 
soil ; but the prevalent opinion is that the “ weather ” gets into 
the timber by small fissures (possibly by late pruning), in 
holes made by insects, or by bruises, and it is possible also 
that the tannin of the bark may enter the tree with the 
external moisture. Some bat makers say that these “ stainy ” 
marks spoil the sale of bats, others maintain that it shows a 
tougher quality of timber ; but this view may be expressed 
from the same incentive as that which actuated the tailless 
fox in the well-known fable. 
