Osier

“ Before ever one has thought seriously of the coming of spring, the long branchlets of the weeping willow have quickened into a hint of lovely yellowish green, and those same branchlets will be holding their green leaves against a wintry blast when most other trees have given up their foliage under the frost's urgency. Often have the orange-yellow twigs of the golden osier illumined a somber countryside for me as I looked from the car window; and close by may be seen other willow bushes of brown, green, gray, and even purple, to add to the color compensation of the season. ”

“ There are no hills near the river nor within sight, except one or two distant mountains seen in a few places. The banks are from six to ten feet high, but once or twice rise gently to higher ground. In many places the forest on the bank was but a thin strip, letting the light through from some alder swamp or meadow behind. The conspicuous berry-bearing bushes and trees along the shore were the red osier, with its whitish fruit, hobble-bush, mountain-ash, tree-cranberry, choke-cherry, now ripe, alternate cornel, and naked viburnum. ”

“ They are small islands planted entirely with willows, and are called osier-holts.
Osier-beds of all kinds are very attractive "little woods." One always fancies one ought to be able to make something of the long pliable "sally-withys"—as the Wiltshire folk call willow switches. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the making of rough garden-baskets is a very simple art, especially on the Scotch and German system. Let any ingenious little prowler in an osier-bed get two thickish willow-rods and fasten them at the ends with a bit of wire, so as to make two hoops. ”

“ These restless sedge-reedlings cannot pause; their little feet are for ever at work, climbing about the willow-stoles where the wands spring from the trunk; they never reflect; they are always engaged. This restlessness is to them a great pleasure; they are filled with the life which the sun gives, and express it in every motion; they are so joyful, they cannot be still. Step into the osier-bed amongst them gently; they [Pg 50] will chirp—a note like a sparrow's—just in front, and only recede a yard at a time as you push through the tall grass, flags, and underwood. ”

“ Rude and clumsy as their nests may at first appear, it is just the sort of workmanship best calculated for their wants. They do not, indeed, choose the smooth and flexible osier-twigs which we should think necessary for basket-making, but they contrive by means of brittle, dead, forked sticks, to plait together a strong bristling out-work, within which they interweave a finer basket-work of fibrous roots, rude indeed, but not inelegant or unsuitable. ”

“ This is the main reason why osiers, unlike most farm crops, keep up their price. Immense quantities are now imported from Belgium, France, and Germany because our own crop is not nearly sufficient. 1 They do not require a wet soil or to be near water: all that the willow roots need is that the land shall be good and not too dry or sandy. Stagnant, boggy ground does not suit them at all, though they will grow well in light loam. Many species of osier are of most brilliant colouring in winter and early spring. ”

“ The Round-leaved Dogwood grows in dry, rocky woods.
Red Osier (Cornus stolonifera Michx.) . Red Osier has dark red twigs with white pith. The leaves are pale and somewhat hairy on the lower surface. The berries are white or grayish. Red Osier usually grows along shores, often forming thickets.
Silky Dogwood (Cornus obliqua Raf.) . This plant is usually a shrub, but may get as much as 15 feet tall. It has twigs with pale brown pith. The leaves are pale on the lower surface, and usually have white, appressed hairs. The berries are blue. Silky Dogwood grows in low ground. ”

“ They inhabit more particularly wet osier-beds, where the different sedges, the Carex ovalis, Carex acuta and Carex riparia grow abundantly, but they seem to prefer them when rather drier, that is to say, where the willows are young and thick, and where the Juncus effusus, Spiræa ulmaria (meadow sweet) and different species of Epilobium (willow herb) grow in tangled masses. ”

“ Rowe, and were popped over the side when the barge was likely to grate against the shore, or against another vessel.
"Them's osier-beds. They cuts 'em every year or so for basket-work. Wot's that little bird a-hanging head downwards? It's a titmouse looking for insects, that is. There's scores on 'em in the osier-beds. Aye, aye, the yellow lilies is pretty enough, but there's a lake the other way—a mile or two beyond your father's, Master Fred—where there's white water-lilies. They're pretty, if you like! ”

“ When the osiers are well started they grow so densely that they kill out the weeds themselves. The rate of growth even on ordinary field-land is astonishing; they will add eighteen inches in a week. February and March are the months for planting, and March also sees the osier harvest when the time comes to cut them. ”

“ In this species alone the filaments of the two stamens are more or less united. The Purple Osier gets its name from the red or purple bark which clothes the thin but tough twigs. It is a shrub, and grows from five to ten feet high. The leaves, which are rather thin in texture, are from three to six inches long, of slender-lance-shape, with toothed edges, smooth and glaucous on both sides, but especially beneath, somewhat hairy when young. They are almost opposite on the twigs, and when dried for the herbarium turn black. ”

“ In winter if the weather be severe, hares and rabbits are very bold, and will enter gardens though attached to dwelling-houses. Sometimes when a vast double-mound hedge is grubbed, the ditches each side are left, and the interior space is ultimately converted into an osier-bed, osiers being rather profitable at present. But before these are introduced it is necessary that the ground be well dug up, for it is full of roots and the seeds of weeds, which perhaps have lain dormant for years, but now spring up in wonderful profusion. ”

“ Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle, ”

“ The soil best adapted for it is a rich but not clayey one. In planting an osier bed an important condition is that the trees should be placed sufficiently closely together, since it is found that, with too much space, the shoots do not develop into long and slender branches, which are so much sought after. ”

“ But a hardier variety, Salix viminalis, is commonly preferred in this country where the cultivation, though often undertaken, has never been very successful, from the fact that American labor can not compete with the labor of women and children in Europe. 3. In cool climates having a moist atmosphere the Osier willow is successfully grown where ordinary crops thrive, but in warmer and drier sections low and moist land must be chosen. Indeed the whole tribe of willows love cool, moist situations, and the richer the soil the stronger and quicker the growth. ”

“ Indeed Osier-Willows are pollarded, or cut off, from time to time, by the cultivator, for the purpose of producing a crop of slender adventitious twigs, suitable for basket-work. Such branches, being altogether irregular, of course interfere with the natural symmetry of the tree. Another cause of irregularity, in certain trees and shrubs, is the formation of what are called
Fig. ”

“ They adapt themselves to a wide range of soil and climate. They grow on high ground and on gravelly soils not less than by the sides of streams, where we most commonly see them. They are of rapid growth and yield a large return. The osier-willow is specially useful, we know, for the manufacture of baskets, chairs, and other articles of furniture, and we import it to the extent of $5,000,000 annually, when we might produce it easily in almost any part of our country. We hardly think of the willow as a timber-tree or for the production of lumber, but only as yielding a cheap, poor sort of fuel. ”

“ It is difficult to push one's way through the undergrowth, the saplings are so tough, and brambles, armed with clinging, tearing hooks, trail everywhere in the waist-high grass. The litter of old reed-stems is hidden by the new growth, but jagged broken staves wait for the unwary foot, and the ancient stocks of cut osiers cause one to stumble ”

“ Many beautiful shrubs which have been introduced from foreign countries do 042well in Ontario, but our native shrubs serve all decorative purposes. For damp ground there is no better shrub than the red osier dogwood. ”

“ They are now (July 9th) about in the osiers with their parents, whose warning notes, more musical and agreeable than the harsh grating of the Sedge Warblers, are to be heard on every side. The plumage of the young birds is, as I observed two years ago, much darker and more rufous than that of the parents, and the throat and breast are of a warm buff. I may add that the vigorous singing still going on shows clearly that one new nest at least has been built within the last few days.—W. Warde Fowler (Kingham, Chipping Norton) . ”

“ I had already heard the bird near Abbeville in France on May 28th, but have never yet heard it in England till the first week in June. On the 10th the osiers were alive with the brilliant singing of at least two or three males, in a space about half an acre in extent. The Sedge Warblers seemed entirely outdone, and the listener could regale himself with the strains of the rarer species undisturbed by any other songs. On the 20th, after some careful watching, I found a nest with five eggs almost in the exact spot where I first found one in 1893, which is now in the Oxford Museum ”

“ It is commonly supposed that osiers or willows will prove remunerative and flourish with little attention on any poor, wet, marshy soil. This is, however, not the case. No crop responds more readily to careful husbandry and skilful cultivation. For the successful raising of the finer sorts of willows good, well-drained, loamy upland soil is desirable, which before planting should be deeply trenched and cleared of weeds. ”

“ Some harder varieties, known as stone osiers and raised on drier upland soils, are peeled and used for fine work. S. fragilis, with some half-score varieties, is almost exclusively used by market gardeners for bunching greens, turnips and other produce. Owing to the increased demand for finer work much attention has been given (see Basket) in recent years to the cultivation of the more ligneous and tougher species, S. triandra, S. purpurea and S. amygdalina with their many varieties and hybrids. ”

“ The grass mounts high, but not higher than the oxeye daisies, the blue racemes of stachys, the mauve-coloured heads of scabious, the bladder-campions, the yellow buttercups and goat's-beard. The oxeyes are so numberless in one long reach of meadow that a white drapery, which every breeze folds or unfolds, seems to have been cast as light as sea-foam upon the illimitable forest of stems. The white butterflies that flutter above are like flecks of foam on the wing. ”

“ Oh, my poor dear, when I saw you clinging to that wild thyme stalk from early morning until sun-down, I tell you frankly, I thought of nothing in the world but an Oyster sadly glued to a rock, without ever being able to change its home!"
"You are perfectly right," replied the Bee, "and I like the comparison, for it suits us Bees admirably. We have no desire to imitate the idle pleasures of you Butterflies. We are satisfied to be useful; and that is what Nature designed us for. Those Oysters, sadly bound to a rock, produce pearls, and we Bees, well, we make honey." ”

“ Oyster-catchers, one or two pairs, nest in the thrift, and sit, apparently indifferently, on some mound or other elevated position to watch the behaviour of any visitors; all the time they keep up a steady "pic-pic," probably a warning to their mates or young when they are hatched. Rock-pipits by their anxious peepings reveal the fact that they have nests in the cliffs, and their rather smaller relatives, meadow-pipits or titlarks, find plenty of cover for their brown eggs. ”

“ The water-ousel's nest is a very curious structure—outwardly resembling a wren's, but built on a wholly different principle—an ordinary cup-shaped nest of grass lined with dead leaves, placed in some convenient niche, but encased with moss so as to form a large mass that covers it completely except a small hole for the bird's passage. The eggs laid within are from four to seven in number, and are of a pure white. The young are able to swim before they are fully fledged. ”

“ If disturbed, or suddenly frightened, the Ousel will flit up or down the stream. Sometimes the bird will wing its way to the opposite bank. It delights in the water, and spends hours in wading about and seeking its food among the pebbles and sand. The cute little fellow bathes almost constantly. Every few minutes it will dip its plump little body under the water, and then shake its feathers.
The bird is always cheerful and full of action. Never for an instant is the Ousel at rest. It is always on the move, uttering its short, plaintive chirp. The Ousel is not wild, nor even timid. ”

“ The ousel sweetens the shady glens and canyons where waterfalls abound, and every grove or forest, however silent it may seem when we chance to pay it a hasty visit, has its singers,--thrushes, linnets, warblers,--while hummingbirds glint and hover about the fringing masses of bloom around stream and meadow openings. ”

“ Why, even as it is, we don't get more than one oyster out of every six we plant."
"How do you know?"
"Why, we know how many bushels we plant and how many we ketch when they're old enough to be dredged. We plant about 500 bushels to an acre and we'd like to plant a thousand if we could get 'em. They're about the size of your thumb nail and there's about 700 to 900 seed-oysters in a bushel. By the time we dredge 'em we won't get more'n a basket for every bushel we planted. ”