The communion between
human and tree life is well illustrated by a passage from Thoreau's
_Walden_: "I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest
snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or
an old acquaintance among the pines."
At Aldington a most valuable tree was the willow, or "withy," as it is
called in Worcestershire, though in Hampshire the latter name is given
to the Goat willow, or sallow ("sally," in Worcestershire), bearing
the pretty blossoms known as palms, which in former times were worn by
men and boys in country places on Palm Sunday. My brooks were bordered
on both sides by pollard withies, the whole being divided into seven
parts or annual cuts, so that, as they are lopped every seven years a
cut came in for lopping each year. They were then well furnished with
long and heavy poles, which were severed close to the head of the
pollard with a sharp axe. When on the ground, the brushwood was cut
off and tied into "kids" (faggots) for fire-lighting, the poles being
made into hurdles or sold to the crate-makers in the potteries for
crates in which to pack earthenware goods of all descriptions. The men
employed at the lopping had to stand on the heads of the pollards, and
it was sometimes quite an acrobatic feat to maintain their balance on
a small swaying tree, or on one which overhung the water.
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