The Uses of Underwood
Thirty years ago the price of underwood as it stood growing, at twelve years old, was about twenty pounds an acre; but to-day five pounds an acre is considered a good price for first-class underwood, so hard has the industry been hit by substitutes for ash and hazel. Though we have known underwood to fetch only half a crown an acre, we have seldom seen it described by auctioneers as other than "prime and ripe." The most useful kind is hazel. All sorts of sticks and stakes for the garden are cut of hazel. Wattle-fences are made of it, neatly woven, and the "hethers" which bind the tops of live fences. Closely woven hazel hurdles form a splendid protection for sheep from wind and rain; they cost, to buy, about eight shillings a dozen, and the hurdler is paid about half that sum. Hazel is now largely used in making the crates in which the product of the Potteries is packed. The cleanest growths were formerly made into the hoops of barrels, and one might see thousands of bundles stacked in a clearing. But iron is killing the hoop-makers' industry. One use of hazel has been unaffected by time—the use to which the country blacksmith puts it, when he winds handles of the shoots for his chisels and wedges—being pliant, they allow his tools to adjust themselves to the blow of the hammer. And the hazel-wand remains the favourite divining-rod of the water-finders.
