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.