Abstract
THE growth of osiers, as willows used for basket-making are popularly called, was a declining industry before the war, owing to foreign competition. From Germany, Holland, and Belgium we received, year after year, not only increasing quantities of osiers, but also large importations of baskets and basket-ware, as well as huge consignments of hoops for herring barrels, which are the product of a year or two's extra growth of the common species. Alarmed at the decline of an important local industry like basket-making, the Board of Agriculture, in order to encourage the extension of the area under willow cultivation, published a series of articles by Mr. W. Paulgrave Ellmore on the subject in its Journal for 1911 and 1912, which were reprinted in 1913 as a booklet—“Board o of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publications, No. 18.” The present hand-book is an enlargement of this, and is well worthy of the attention of farmers and landowners who have land suitable for the growth of willows. Osiers, it is necessary to point out, require good land in order to succeed, such as low-lying alluvial tracts beside rivers and streams, and they fail miserably on wet, undrained, swampy, or peaty soils.
The Cultivation of Osiers and Willows.
By W. P. Ellmore. Edited, with Introduction, by Thomas Okey. Pp. x + 96. (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1919.) Price 4s.
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The Cultivation of Osiers and Willows . Nature 103, 144 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103144a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103144a0