Such results as these have no parallel in British forestry; and it may be deemed strange that more attention has not been given to the cultivation of the blue willow. Even in Herts and Essex few of those who grow it for the market are at pains to clear the stems of branches to a greater height than 12 or 15 feet. There appears to be nothing exclusively in the dry climate of East Anglia essential to the development of good "bat" qualities; for Mr. J. A. Campbell of Ardluaine (to whom I owe thanks for some sets of this willow) has received a most favourable report on the wood of trees grown by him in the humid atmosphere of Lochgilphead. In short, the blue willow is as tolerant of conditions of soil and climate as any other native willow, and could probably be grown at a profit in any county of the United Kingdom where shelter from violent winds can be had; but, of course, extended sources of supply would naturally cause a fall in the present exorbitant prices.
The approved method of propagating the blue willow is by large "sets" from 10 to 20 feet long, cut from the branches of trees that have been felled. These have to be sharpened at the butt and firmly set in holes 3 feet deep, formed by driving in and removing a stake. Like the poplar, the willow imperatively demands light, and to obtain a fine quality of timber, the growth must be rapid. Being so impatient of shade, these trees must not be subjected to planting in close canopy, as recommended for coniferous and other trees. The "sets," therefore, should be planted fully 30 feet apart; and to secure a clean hole, side buds must be rubbed off the saplings, and careful pruning applied in later years.
It must not be supposed that the supply of cricket bats exhausts the purposes to which the wood of the blue willow may be applied. This variety should be planted in preference to any other, because it exceeds all others in rapidity of growth, and produces timber of fine quality faster than any other tree that can be grown in the British Isles. But the white willow (S. alba), more commonly known as the Huntingdon willow, also yields a rapid return of light, tough wood, very durable, and suitable for flooring, couples, cart and waggon bodies. Dr. Henry measured two Huntingdon willows near Palnure, Kirkcudbright, in 1904, and found them respectively 86 feet high by 10 feet 8 inches in girth, and 82 feet by 12 feet 9 inches. But the largest willow of this species now growing in Scotland is probably one at Coodham, near Kilmarnock, which girthed 17 feet 1 inch in 1904.
Leaving aside the kinds of willow cultivated for osiers (a most profitable industry), the only other native species worthy of consideration as a timber tree is the crack willow (S. fragilis); so called because of the fragility of the branchlets in spring. A remarkably vigorous variety of the species, popularly known as the Bedford willow, and scientifically as S. Russelliana, appears to have originated about the year 1800, probably as a hybrid. A large specimen growing in Messrs. Samson's nursery at Kilmarnock was blown down in 1911. It was 80 feet high and 16 feet in girth.
Both the crack willow and the Bedford willow may be easily distinguished from the white or Huntingdon willow by their rugged bark, seamed with broad and deep grooves, and by their foliage, which is green and shining, each leaf ending in a long point bent to one side. The timber is inferior in quality to that of the white and blue willows; nevertheless, it is recorded in Lowe's Agricultural Survey of Notts (p. 118) that a plantation of Bedford willows "yielded at eight years' growth poles which realised a net profit of £214 per acre." It is not unlikely, considering the confusion which prevails among species and varieties, that these were blue, not Bedford, willows.
The lugubrious associations with which poets have invested the willow probably may be traced to the English translation of Psalm cxxxvii. 2; but, as noted on [page 81], no willow grows on the banks of the Euphrates, and it was a species of poplar whereon the captive Jews hung their harps. Linnæus may be excused, in consideration of the difficulties of travel in the eighteenth century, for having named the weeping willow Salix babylonica, though that species is only to be found wild in China; but it is an instance of the mischievous practice of one writer copying the statements of another that in Kirkby's Trees we read that the weeping willow "grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates and other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa."
The name "willow" speaks to us of a time when our Anglo-Saxon forbears dwelt in wattled houses. They spoke of the tree as welig and also as widig (whence our "withy"), the root-meaning being pliancy. Another old English name for the tree was "sallow," which in the north has been shortened into "saugh," a term associated with one of the darkest episodes in the somewhat murky annals of the Stuart dynasty; for it was at Sauchieburn near Stirling that James, Duke of Rothesay, aged fifteen years, was brought by the rebel lords to do battle with his father James III. on 11th June, 1488. King James, flying from the field, was done to death; and, in contrition, his son wore an iron chain round his waist till he, too, fell as James IV. at Flodden, twenty-five years later.
The Gaelic for willow is saileach, whence innumerable place-names in Scotland and Ireland, such as Barnsallie, Barsalloch, Sallachy, Lisnasillagh, etc.