Pollarded willows.
Willow branches about as large around as one’s finger make very good whistles in the spring of the year. The sap flowing under the bark loosens it, so that by pounding the twig the bark can be slipped off unbroken, the wood beneath cut as desired, and the bark slipped on again.
The dotted lines show how the wood should be cut away under the bark.
Willow twigs also make very good switches, and long, ah, very long ago, when children used to be naughty, willow switches were in great demand.
In these later days children are never naughty I suppose—or is it only that switching has gone out of fashion?
These switches did not come from weeping willows, though that certainly would have been a very appropriate name for them.
Weeping willows are large and beautiful trees that came from the eastern part of Asia. The twigs are very long and slender and hang down like a veil all about the tree.