TREES: ELM--OAK--BEECH--WILLOW--SCOTS-FIR.
"O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell."
--_The Talking Oak_.
Keats tells us that
"The trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self,"
and had he included the trees around a dwelling-house, the epigram
would have been equally applicable. Sometimes, of course, it becomes
absolutely necessary to cut down an ancient tree that from its
proximity to one's home has become a part of the home itself, but it
is a matter for the gravest consideration, for one cannot foresee the
result, and to a person who has lived long with a noble tree as a near
neighbour, the place never again seems the same.
The Elm is said to be the Worcestershire weed, as the oak is in
Herefordshire; the former attains a great size, but it is not very
deeply rooted, and a heavy gale will sometimes cause many unwelcome
gaps in a stately avenue. Big branches, too, have a way of falling
without the least notice, and on the whole it is safer not to have
elms near houses or cottages. One of the finest avenues of elms I
know, is to be seen at the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester at
Farnham in Surrey, but the land is quite exceptionally good, and in
the palmy days of hop-growing, the adjoining fields commanded a rent
of £20 an acre for what is known as the "Heart land of Farnham," where
hops of the most superlative quality were grown. When the dappled deer
are grouped under this noble avenue, in the light and shade beneath
the elms, they form an old English picture of country life not to be
surpassed.
The elm is a sure sign of rich land, it is never seen on thin poor
soils. An intending purchaser, or tenant, of a farm should always
regard its presence as a certain indication of a likely venture. It is
a terrible robber, and therefore a nuisance round arable land, causing
a spreading shade, under which the corn will be found thin,
"scrawley," and "broken-kneed," with poor, shrivelled ears; and the
alternating green crops will also suffer in their way. In an orchard
it is still worse; I had several at one time surrounded by Blenheim
apples, which were always small, scanty, and colourless. Eventually, I
cut the elms down, the biggest, carrying perhaps 100 cubic feet of
timber at 9d. a foot at the time, was only worth 75s., though it must
have destroyed scores of pounds worth of fruit during its many years
of growth. The elm seems particularly liable to be struck by
lightning, possibly owing to its height, and several suffered in this
way during my time at Aldington.
From the scarcity of oak in the Vale of Evesham elm was often used for
making the coffers or chests we generally see made from the former
wood. I have one of these, nicely carved with the scrolls and bold
devices of the Jacobean period, and it is so dark in colour as to pass
at first sight for old oak. The timber is not much used in building,
except for rough farm sheds; as boards it is liable to twist and
become what is called "cross-winding." The land in the New Forest is
mostly too poor for the elm, and this should warn the theorists, who
during the war have advocated reclaiming the open heaths and moors for
agricultural purposes, against such an ignorant proposition. I suppose
it would cost at least £100 an acre to clear, drain, fence, level,
make roads, and erect the necessary farm buildings, houses and
cottages, with the result that it would command less than £1 per acre
as annual rent; and I should be sorry to be compelled to farm it at
that.
Oaks are somewhat scarce in Worcestershire, and are rarely found in
the Vale of Evesham. I had one remarkably fine specimen in a meadow on
Claybrook, the farm I owned, adjoining the Aldington land. It covered
an area measuring 22 yards by 22 yards = 484 square yards, the tenth
part of an acre. The trunk measured 12 feet in circumference, about 7
feet from the ground. The rule for estimating the age of growing
oak-trees is to calculate 15 years to each inch of radius = 540 years
to a yard, therefore a tree 6 feet in diameter, and about 20 feet
round, including bark and knots, would be just that age. According to
this rule my tree would be not less than 330 years old, which of
course is young for an oak.
The life of this oak was saved in a peculiar way by "a pint of drink,"
and the story was told me by the agent of an old lady, the previous
owner. It had been decided to fell the tree, and two professional
sawyers, who were also "tree-fallers" (fellers), arrived one morning
for the purpose with their axes and cross-cut saw. They surveyed the
prospect and agreeing that it presented a tough job, an adjournment
was arranged to the neighbouring "Royal Oak" for a pint of drink
before commencing operations. Coming back, half an hour later, they
had just stripped and rolled up their shirt sleeves, when the agent
appeared on the road not far off. "Hullo," he shouted, "have you made
a start?" "Just about to begin," replied the head man. "Well then,
don't," said the agent, "the old lady died last night, and I must wait
till the new owners have considered the matter." So the tree was
saved, and curiously enough by its namesake the "Royal Oak." The new
owner spared it, and later when it became my property I did likewise,
for I should have considered it sacrilege to destroy the finest oak in
the neighbourhood. Some years after I had sold the farm I heard that
the tree was blown down in a gale, its enormous head and widespread
branches must have offered immense resistance to the wind, and the
fall of it must have been great.
The most celebrated, if not the biggest oak in the New Forest is the
Knightwood oak, not far from Lyndhurst; it is 17 feet in
circumference, which would make it not less than 450 years old by the
above rule. It is strange to think that it may have been an acorn in
the year 1469, in the reign of Henry VI., and that 200 years later it
could easily have peeped over the heads of its neighbours in 1669, to
see Charles II., who probably went riding along the main Christchurch
road from Lyndhurst with a team of courtiers and court beauties, in
all the pomp of royalty. We know that in that year with reference to
the waste of timber in the Forest during his father's reign he was
especially interested in the planting of young oaks, and enclosed a
nursery of 300 acres for their growth. It is also recorded that he did
not forget the maids of honour of his court, upon whom he bestowed the
young woods of Brockenhurst.
"Oak before ash--only a splash,
Ash before oak--a regular soak,"
is a very ancient proverb referring to the relative times of the
leaves of these trees appearing in the spring, and is supposed to be
prophetic of the weather during the ensuing summer. I have, however,
noticed for many years that the oak is invariably first, so that like
some other prognostications, it seems to be unreliable.
The attitudes of oak trees are a very interesting study. There is the
oak which, bending forwards and stretching out a kindly hand, appears
to offer a hearty welcome; the oak that starts backward in
astonishment at any familiarity advanced by a passing stranger. The
oak that assumes an attitude of pride and self-importance; the oak
that approaches a superior neighbour with an air of humility and
abasement, listening subserviently to his commands. The shrinking oak
in dread of an enemy, and the oak prepared to offer a stout
resistance. The hopeful oak in the prime of life, and the oak that
totters in desolate and crabbed old age. The oak that enjoys in middle
age the good things of life, with well-fed and rounded symmetry; and
the oak that suggests decrepitude, with rough exterior, and a
life-experience of hardship; the sturdy oak, the ambitious oak, the
self-contained oak, and so on, through every phase of character. No
other tree is so human or so expressive, and no other tree bespeaks
such fortitude and endurance. To say that a well-grown oak typifies
the reserve and strength of the true-born Briton, is perhaps to sum up
its individuality in a word.
There is one old fellow who throws back his head and roars with
laughter when I go by; what can be the joke? I must stop some day and
look to see if the sides of his rather tight jacket of Lincoln green
moss are really splitting, and perhaps, if I can catch the pitch of
his voice, I shall hear him whisper:
"A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest."
I like to think that these old personalities are transmigrations, and
that each is now at leisure to correct some special mistake in a
previous existence. Perhaps, out there in the moonlight, they tell
their stories to each other, and to the owls I hear at midnight
performing an appropriately weird overture.
These talking oaks can only be found where they have grown from acorns
naturally, and where they have survived the struggle of life against
their enemies, including the interference of man, the attacks of
grazing animals, the blasts of winter and the heavy burden of its
snows. The natural woods, as distinct from the plantations of the New
Forest, offer many examples of these varying trees and the lessons
they convey. Such a piece of old natural forest almost surrounds my
present home, and every time I pass through it I bless the memory of
William the Conqueror. Randolph Caldecott, that prince of illustrators
of rural life, evidently noticed the characteristic attitudes of
trees; look at the sympathetic dejection displayed by the two old
pollard willows in his sketch of the maiden all forlorn, in _The House
that Jack Built_. The maiden has her handkerchief to her eyes, and in
a few masterly strokes one of the trees is depicted with a falling
tear, and the other bent double is hobbling along with a crutch
supporting its withered and tottering frame.
Far otherwise is it with the plantations where the oaks are
artificially cultivated for timber. These are planted close together
on purpose to draw each other upwards in the struggle for air and
sunlight, which prevents their branching so near the ground as the
natural trees, the object being to produce an extended length of
straight trunk that will eventually afford a long and regular cut of
timber, free from the knots caused by the branches. All round the
plantations Scots-firs are planted as "nurses," to keep off the rough
winds and prevent breakage; these also help to lengthen the trunks by
inducing upward development. As the trees get nearer together they are
repeatedly thinned out, and, eventually, only those left which are
intended to come to maturity. Under this artificial, though necessary
system, the trees lose all individuality, and they never regain it
because they are all more or less controlled when growing, and so
become uninteresting copies of each other.
The motto of the natural oak is _festina lente_, mindful of the
proverb, "early maturity means early decay." It is well known that
oak, slowly and naturally grown on poor soil, is far more durable than
that which is run up artificially or produced on rich land. The
branches of oaks rarely cross or damage each other by friction, like
those of the beech, they are obstinate and will sooner break in a
gale, than give way. Where an oak and a beech grow side by side, close
together, the oak suffers more than the beech, from the dense shade of
the latter; and if they are so near as to touch and rub together in
the wind, the oak will throw out a plaster or protection of bark, to
act as a styptic to the wound in the first place, and eventually as a
solid barrier against further aggression.
Paintings of landscape in which trees occur are rarely satisfactory;
if you look at children playing beneath timber trees, or passers-by,
the first thing that strikes you is the majesty and the height of the
tree, as compared with the human figure. In paintings this is not as a
rule expressed; the trees are too insignificant, and the figures too
important, so that the range and wealth of tree-life is lost.
Gainsborough's _Market Cart_ is a notable exception, but the cart is a
clumsy affair, and the shafts are much too low both on it and the
horse. Constable's _Valley Farm_, _The Haywain_, _The Cornfield_, and
_Dedham Mill_ are all striking examples of his sense of tree
proportion, lending no little to the nobility of his pictures, and
speaking eloquently of the reverence man should feel in the presence
of Nature, untainted by his own fancied importance.
What is known as "heart of oak" in Worcestershire is called
"spine-oak" in the New Forest, and the latter is perhaps the better
name of the two as expressive of greater durability. The outer part of
the trunk is called "the sap," and whilst the heart or spine is almost
indestructible, the sap-wood quickly decays, and is rejected in using
the timber for any important purpose. Pieces of the sap adhering to
the heart-wood of which the old oak coffers were made, may often be
found riddled with worm holes and almost gone to dust, while the
remainder of the chest is as sound as the day it was made two or three
hundred years ago.
It is interesting, too, to notice marks of charring on the edge of the
lids of these coffers; it is said that they were caused by placing the
rushlight in that position, the flame just overhanging the edge, to
give time to jump into bed by its light leaving it to be automatically
extinguished on reaching the wood; and that the charring occurred when
sometimes the flame continued to burn a little longer than expected.
Oak is usually felled in the spring when the sap is rising, to allow
of the easier removal of the bark for tanning. It is a pretty sight to
see, amidst the greenery of the standing trees, the stripped and
gleaming trunks and larger limbs stretched upon the ground, with the
neatly piled stacks of bark arranged for the air to draw through and
dry them before removal. This is called "rining" in the New Forest,
and good wages are earned at it by the men employed.
It is perhaps the only timber, with the exception of sweet chestnut,
that is worthy to be used for the roofs of ecclesiastical buildings.
At Badsey, when we removed the roof of the church prior to
restoration, we found the oak timbers on the north side as sound as
when placed there many years further back than living memory could
recall, and of which no record or tradition existed. These timbers
were all used again in the new roof, but those from the south side had
to be discarded, having been much more exposed to driving rain and
daily changes of temperature.
I had a number of oak field-gates made, but as the timber was barely
seasoned, we were afraid shrinkage might take place in the mortises
and tenons, and it was an agreeable surprise to find in a year or two
that nothing of the kind had happened. The mortise hole had apparently
got smaller, and still fitted the shrunken tenon to perfection. Oak
gates will last, if kept occasionally painted, sixty or seventy years
in farm use, and there were gates on my land fully that age and still
quite serviceable.
The acorns from oaks in pastures are a trouble, as cattle are very
fond of them and sometimes gorge themselves to such an extent as to
prove fatal, if allowed unrestricted access to them when really
hungry; but in the New Forest they are welcomed by the commoners
(occupiers of private lands), some of whom possess the right of
"pannage" (turning out pigs on the Crown property).
In old days the oak timbers of which our battleships were constructed
were supplied from the New Forest; and the saw-pit in which the
timbers of the _Victory_ were sawn by hand is still to be seen in
Burley New Plantation. But Government methods appear to have been
generally conducted in later times somewhat on the independent lines
which distinguished them in the Great War. Some years ago it was said
that a department requiring oak timber advertised for tenders in a
newspaper, in which also appeared an advertisement of another
department offering oak for sale. A dealer who obtained an option to
purchase from the latter, submitted a tender to the former, succeeded
in obtaining the business, and cleared a large profit.
The oak has figured repeatedly in English history and occupies a
unique place in our national tradition, commencing with its Druidical
worship as a sacred tree. It was from an oak that the arrow of Walter
Tyrrel which struck down William Rufus is said to have glanced, and
Magna Charta was signed beneath an oak by the unwilling hand of King
John. It is associated in all ages with preachings, political
meetings, and with parish and county boundaries. These boundary oaks
were called Gospel-trees, it is said, because the gospel for the day
was read beneath them by the parochial priest during the annual
perambulation of the parish boundaries by the leading inhabitants in
Rogation week. Herrick alludes to the practice in the lines addressed
to Anthea in _Hesperides_:
"Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oke or Gospel-tree,
Where (though thou see'st not) thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly go'st Procession."
But perhaps the oak that appeals most to the lively imagination
venerating old tales of merry England, and with whose story generous
hearts are most in sympathy, is that
"Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And hummed a surly hymn."
The beech is not a common tree in the Vale of Evesham, preferring the
dryer soils of the Cotswold Hills. It is said to have been introduced
by the Romans, and is familiar as the tree mentioned by Virgil in the
opening line of his first Pastoral:
"_Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi_;"
the metre, and the words of which, apart from their signification,
suggest so accurately the pattering of the leaves of the tree in a
gentle breeze. This device like alliteration is a method of
intensifying the expression of a passage, and is frequently adopted by
the poets.
In another famous onomatopoeic line--
"_Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum_"
--Virgil imitates the sound of a galloping horse, and the shaking of
the ground beneath its hoofs.
Tennyson renders very naturally the action of the northern farmer's
nag and the sound of its movement, by--
"Proputty, proputty sticks an' proputty, proputty graws."
And an excellent example of the effect of well-chosen words, to
express the sound produced by the subject referred to, occurs in the
_Morte d'Arthur_:
"The many-knotted waterflags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge."
Blackmore's passage in _Lorna Doone_, describing the superlative ease
and speed of Tom Faggus's mare, when John Ridd as a boy was allowed to
ride her--after a rough experience at the beginning of the
venture--is, though printed as prose, perhaps better poetry than most
similar efforts. To emphasize its full force it may be allowable to
divide the phrases as follows:
"I never had dreamed of such delicate motion,
Fluent, and graceful, and ambient,
Soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers,
But swift as the summer lightning.
I sat up again, but my strength was all spent,
And no time left to recover it,
And though she rose at our gate like a bird,
I tumbled off into the mixen."
The last line is a delightful bathos, adding immensely to the
completeness of the catastrophe.
In spring the beech is the most beautiful of forest trees, putting
forth individual horizontal sprays of tender green from the lower
branches about the end of April as heralds of the later full glory of
the tree. These increase day by day upwards in verdant clouds, until
the whole unites into a complete bower of dense greenery. The beech is
known as the "groaning tree," because the branches often cross each
other, and where the tree is exposed to the wind sometimes groan as
they rub together. The rubbing often causes a wound where one of the
branches will eventually break off, or occasionally automatic grafting
takes place, and they unite. In the Verderer's Hall at Lyndhurst
specimens are to be seen which have crossed and joined a second time,
so that a complete hollow oval, or irregular circle of the wood could
be cut out of the branch.
Estates where extensive beech woods existed have been bought by
speculative timber dealers, who shortly installed a gang of wood
cutters and a steam saw, on which the timber was sawn into suitable
pieces, to be afterwards turned on a lathe into chair legs and other
domestic furniture, and very often finally dyed to represent mahogany.
There are beeches in the New Forest which vie with the oak for premier
place, measuring over 20 feet in circumference, and the mast together
with the acorns affords abundant harvest, or "ovest," as it is called,
for the commoners' pigs.
There was a curious saying in use by persons on the road to Pershore,
when asked their destination. In a good plum year the reply was,
"Pershore, where d'ye think?" And in a year of scarcity, "Pershore,
God help us!" The same expressions were formerly current regarding
Burley in the New Forest referring to the abundance or scarcity of
beech-mast and acorns, called collectively "akermast."
When the nation had presented the Duke of Wellington, after the Battle
of Waterloo, with Strathfieldsaye, an estate between Basingstoke and
Reading, the Duke wishing to commemorate the event planted a number of
beech trees as a lasting memorial, which were known as "the Waterloo
beeches." Some years later, the eminent arboricultural author, John
Loudon, writing on the subject of the relative ages and sizes of
trees, wrote to the Duke for permission to view his Waterloo beeches.
The Duke had never heard of Loudon, and his writing being somewhat
illegible he deciphered the signature "J. Loudon" as "J. London" (the
Bishop of London), and the word "beeches" as "breeches." "For what on
earth can the Bishop want to see the breeches I wore at Waterloo?"
said the Duke; but taking a charitable view of the matter he decided
that the poor old Bishop must be getting irresponsible and replied
that he was giving his valet instructions to show the Bishop the
garments in question, whenever it suited him to inspect them. The
Bishop was equally amazed, but took exactly the same view about the
Duke as the latter had decided upon concerning the Bishop. No doubt
the mystery was eventually cleared up, and Bishop and Duke must have
both enjoyed the joke.
The shade of the beech is so dense that grass will not grow beneath
it; it gradually kills even holly, which is comparatively flourishing
under the oak. The beech woods in the Forest are thus quite free from
undergrowth, and the noble trees with their smooth ash-coloured stems
can be seen in perfection, giving a cathedral aisle effect, which is
erroneously said to have suggested the massive columns and groined
roofs of Gothic architecture.
"Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."
There is, too, an unearthly effect at times to be seen beneath them,
so exaggerated as to remind one of the stage setting of a pastoral
play, with all the enhancing artificial contrivance of light and
shade. It is to be seen only on a brilliantly sunny day, where the
contour of the space around the stem and below the branches takes the
form of an arched cavern, flooded by a single shaft of sunlight,
piercing the foliage at one particular spot, lighting up the floor
carpeted with last year's red-brown leaves, and emphasizing the gloom
of the walls and roof. Imagination instantly supplies the players, for
a more perfect setting for Rosalind and Celia, Orlando and the
melancholy Jaques, it would be impossible to conceive. It is said that
the ancient Greeks could see with their ears and hear with their eyes,
a privilege doubtless granted to the nature lover in all ages. In the
Forest some of the most ancient and remarkable trees have borne for
generations descriptive names such as the King and Queen oaks at
Boldrewood, and the Eagle oak in Knightwood. The communion between
human and tree life is well illustrated by a passage from Thoreau's
_Walden_: "I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest
snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or
an old acquaintance among the pines."
At Aldington a most valuable tree was the willow, or "withy," as it is
called in Worcestershire, though in Hampshire the latter name is given
to the Goat willow, or sallow ("sally," in Worcestershire), bearing
the pretty blossoms known as palms, which in former times were worn by
men and boys in country places on Palm Sunday. My brooks were bordered
on both sides by pollard withies, the whole being divided into seven
parts or annual cuts, so that, as they are lopped every seven years a
cut came in for lopping each year. They were then well furnished with
long and heavy poles, which were severed close to the head of the
pollard with a sharp axe. When on the ground, the brushwood was cut
off and tied into "kids" (faggots) for fire-lighting, the poles being
made into hurdles or sold to the crate-makers in the potteries for
crates in which to pack earthenware goods of all descriptions. The men
employed at the lopping had to stand on the heads of the pollards, and
it was sometimes quite an acrobatic feat to maintain their balance on
a small swaying tree, or on one which overhung the water.
There was a local saying that "the withy tree would buy the horse,
while the oak would only buy the halter," and I believe it to be
perfectly true; for the uses of the withy are innumerable, and
throughout its seven years' growth from one lopping to another there
is always something useful to be had from it, with its final harvest
of full-grown poles. One year after lopping the superfluous shoots are
cut out and used or sold for "bonds" for tying up "kids" or the mouths
of corn sacks. As the shoots grow stronger more can be taken--with
ultimate benefit to the development of the full-grown poles--for use
as rick pegs and "buckles" in thatching. The buckles are the wooden
pins made of a small strip of withy, twisted at the centre so that it
can be doubled in half like a hairpin, and used to fix the rods which
secure the thatch by pressing the buckles firmly into it. In Hampshire
these are called "spars," and they are sold in bundles containing a
fixed number.
I heard an amusing story about these spars. A certain thatcher, we may
call him Joe, was engaged upon the roof of a cottage, when the parson
of the parish chanced to pass that way. Joe had of late neglected his
attendance at church, and the vicar saw his way to a word of advice.
After "passing the time of day" he took Joe to task for his neglected
attendance and waxing warm expressed his fears that Joe had forgotten
all his Sunday-school lessons; he was doubtful even, he said, if Joe
could tell him the number of the Commandments. Joe confessed his
ignorance. "Dear me," said the vicar, "to think that in this
nineteenth century any man could be found so ignorant as not to know
the number of the Commandments!" Joe bided his time until the vicar's
attention had been called to the spars, when Joe asked him how many a
bundle contained. It was a problem that the vicar could not solve.
"Dear me," said Joe, "to think that in this 'ere nineteenth century
any man could be found so ignorant as not to know the number of spars
in a bundle!" Joe always added when telling the story, "But there," I
says, "every beggar," I says, "to his trade," I says.
Sometimes a picturesque gipsy would come to the Manor House with
clothes-pegs for sale, and she generally negotiated a deal, for
everybody has a sneaking regard for the gipsies and their romantic
life _sub Jove_. Walking round the farm shortly afterwards I would
come upon the remains of their fire and deserted camp by the roadside
close to the brook, the ground strewn with the peel and refuse from
the materials with which they had supplied themselves gratis, and I
recognized that we had been buying goods made from my own withies.
Even so we did not complain, for no real harm was done to the trees.
The heads of these old pollards are favourite places for birds'-nests,
and all kinds of plants and bushes take root in their decaying fibre,
the seeds having been carried by the birds; so that ivy, brambles,
wild gooseberries, currants, raspberries, nut bushes and elders, can
be seen growing there. Whenever the foxhounds ran a fox to Aldington
he was always lost near the brookside, and it was said that the
cunning beast eluded the hounds by mounting a pollard and jumping from
one to another, until the scent was dissipated. It was also a
tradition that when hunting began on the Cotswolds the experienced
foxes left for the Vale, leaving the less crafty to fight it out with
the hounds; for the Evesham district was seldom visited by the hunt,
owing to possible damage to the highly cultivated winter crops of the
market-gardeners.
Jarge had a very narrow escape when grubbing out an old willow
overhanging a pool. He had been at work some hours, and had a deep
trench dug out all round the tree, to attack the roots with a
stock-axe. He had cut them all through except the tough tap-root, when
I reached him, and he was standing in the trench at work upon it. He
was certain that it would be some time before the tree fell, the
tap-root being very large; but, as I stood watching on the ground
above, I thought I saw a suspicious tremor pass over the tree, and an
instant later I was certain it was coming down. I shouted to him to
get out of the trench. It took a second or two to get clear, as the
trench was deep, and he was not a tall man, so he was scarcely out
when the tree fell with a crash on the exact spot where he had been at
work. Had I not been present it must have fallen upon him, for not
expecting the end was so near he had not been watching the signs.
Though not a tall tree, it was a very stout and heavy trunk, and the
tap-root on inspection proved to be partly rotten.
"Forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
"I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
"I wonder'd, while I paced along:
The woods were fill'd so full with song,
There seemed no room for sense of wrong."
Such is Tennyson's description of a spring day in the fields and
woods, and nothing more beautiful could be written. And so it was with
joy that my men and carter boys with waggons and teams started early
on the spring mornings to bring home the newly purchased hop-poles
from the distant woods. These poles are sold by auction in stacks
where they are cut, and the buyer has to cart them home. Usually,
after a successful hop year they were in great demand; prices would
rise in proportion, and the early seller did well, but when the later
sales came sometimes, the demand being satisfied, there would be a
heavy fall in values, and as a cunning buyer expressed it, "The poles
lasted longer than the money."
The dainty catkins of the hazel are the first sign of awakening life
in the woods; they are well out by the end of January or early in
February, and as they ripen, clouds of pollen are disseminated by the
wind. Tennyson speaks of "Native hazels tassel-hung." The female
bloom, which is the immediate precursor of the nut itself, is a pretty
little pink star, which can be found on the same branch as the catkin
but is much less conspicuous; and both are a very welcome sight, as
almost the earliest hint of spring. The hazel bloom is shortly
followed by the green leaves of the woodbine, which climbs so
exultingly to the tops of the highest trees and breathes its fragrance
on a summer evening. In the New Forest the green hellebore is early
and noticeable from its peculiar green blossoms, but I have not seen
it in Worcestershire.
My men and teams were generally off to the hills, Blockley, Broadway,
Winchcombe, Farmcote, and suchlike out-of-the-way places, when the wet
"rides" in the woods were drying up. The boys especially revelled in
the flowers--primroses and wild hyacinths--and came home with huge
bunches; they enjoyed the novelty of the woods and the wild
hill-country, which is such a contrast to the flat and highly
cultivated Vale.
When unloaded at home the poles have to be trimmed, cut to the proper
length, 12 to 14 feet, "sharped," "shaved" at the butt 2 or 3 feet
upwards, and finally boiled so far for twenty-four hours, standing
upright in creosote, which doubles the lasting period of their
existence. They were chiefly ash, larch, maple, wych elm, and sallow,
and the rough butts, when sawn off before the sharping, supplied the
firing for the boiling. Green ash is splendid for burning: "The ash
when green is fuel for a Queen." Later, when I adopted a Kentish
system of hop-growing on coco-nut yarn supported by steel wire on
heavy larch poles, our visits to the woods were less frequent, and
much wear and tear of horses and waggons was saved. Some of our
journeys, in the earlier days, took us to the estate of the Duc
d'Aumale, on the Worcester side of Evesham, where some excellent ash
poles were grown. In one lot of some thousands I bought, every pole
had a crook in it ("like a dog's hind leg," my men said), about 2 or 3
feet from the ground, which was caused by the Duc having given orders
some years previously, on the occasion of a visit from the Prince of
Wales (the late King Edward), to have a large area of young coppice
cut off at that height, to make a specially convenient piece of
walking and pheasant shooting for the Prince.
On this occasion many people went to Evesham Station to see the
arrival of the Prince and retinue, and their departure for Wood Norton
in the Duc's carriages. Our old vicar was returning full of loyalty,
and passing an ancient Badsey radical inquired if he had been to see
the Prince. "Noa, sir," was the reply, "I been a-working hard to get
some money to keep 'e with." In some of the Wood Norton woods there
are large numbers of fir trees, planted, it was said, as roosting
places for the pheasants, so that they might not be visible to the
night poacher; but it was found that the birds preferred the leafless
trees, where they offer an easy pot shot in the moonlight or in the
grey of the dawn.
The Scots-fir is an interloper in the New Forest, and always looks out
of place; it was introduced as an experiment I believe, less than 150
years ago, and has been found useful as I have explained for
sheltering young plantations of oaks. It grows rapidly, and has been
planted by itself on land too poor for more valuable timber, chiefly
for pit-props. During the war immense numbers of Canadians and
Portuguese have been employed in felling these trees and cutting them
up into stakes for wire entanglements, trench timbers, and sleepers
for light railways. Huge temporary villages have grown up for the
accommodation of the men employed, equipped with steam sawing-tackle,
canteens, offices and quarters, and with light railways running far
away into the plantations where the trees are cut. It was a wonderful
sight to see these busy centres alive with men and machinery, in
places where before there was nothing but the silence of the woods.
And it is curious that, as in the old days the New Forest provided the
oak timber for the battleships that fought upon the sea in Nelson's
time, so now, in the fighting on land, we have been able to export
from the same place hundreds of thousands of tons of fir for the use
of our troops in France and Belgium.
Old railway sleepers are exceedingly useful for many purposes on
farms, and as they are soaked in creosote, they last many years, for
light bridges and rough shelters, after they are worn out for railway
purposes. The railway company adjoining my land discarded a quantity
of these partly defective sleepers, and left them, for a time, lying
beside the hedge which separated the line from my fields. I applied to
the Company for some, and suggested that they need only be put over
the hedge, and I would cart them away. But that is not the routine of
the working of such matters; though it appeals to the simple rustic
mind, it would be considered "irregular." They had to be loaded on
trucks sent specially on the railway, taken to Worcester sixteen miles
by train, unloaded, sorted, loaded again, sent back to my station,
unloaded, loaded again on to my waggons, and carted a mile and a half
on the waggons which had been sent empty the same distance to the
station!
Overgrown old hedges are exceedingly pretty in autumn when hung with
clusters of "haws," the brilliant berries of the hawthorn, and the
"hips" of the wild rose. There is, too, the peculiar pink-hued berry
of the spindle wood, and, in chalky and limestone districts, the "old
man's beard" of the wild clematis, bright fresh hazel nuts, and golden
wreaths of wild hops. It is said that
"Hops, reformation, bays and beer
Came into England all in a year."
But it is certain that the wild hops at any rate must have been
indigenous, for one finds them in neighbourhoods far from districts
where hops are cultivated, and the couplet probably refers to the
Flemish variety, which would be the sort imported in the days of Henry
VIII., though at the present time our best varieties are far superior.
The holly is only seen as garden hedges in the more sandy parishes of
Worcestershire, but here in the Forest it is a splendid feature,
growing to a great size and height. In winter its bright shining
leaves reflecting the sunlight enliven the woods, so that we never get
the bare and cheerless look of places where the elm and the whitethorn
hedge dominate the landscape. In spring its small white blossoms are
thickly distributed, and at Christmas its scarlet berries are ever
welcome. Its prickles protect it from browsing cattle and Forest
ponies, but it is interesting to notice that many of the leaves on the
topmost branches being out of reach of the animals are devoid of this
protection.