ength, 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 entanglem