Willow grouse

“ A species with a smaller bill and in summer a grayer plumage, more finely barred with black. Its nesting habits are the same as the other species, it nesting on the ground in such localities as would be frequented by the Ruffed Grouse. Its eggs cannot be positively distinguished from those of the Willow Ptarmigan. ”

“ I mean the most common kind to be found in the northern States—the kind that stands beside the roadside watering-trough. The impression is common that willows will thrive only in wet places. It is true that a willow is very comfortable in places where many other trees will suffer from wet feet; yet it will give good results elsewhere. It is reasonable to suppose that poor soil goes with a poor school [444] building, and a refined tree would probably find life hard in such a place. I should certainly plant a willow in such cases. It will thrive where a goat can, and where a sheep cannot. ”

“ In the United States, it has become a custom to plant Willows along the banks, because they are then not so liable to be broken down and worn away. Yet when a big Willow tree has become undermined, the weight of the trunk may cause it to fall over towards the water, so that a large section of the bank may be loosened and serious damage may be done if it is torn away by a heavy flood. ”

“ It sometimes seems next to impossible to kill them by cutting off their tops. There are said to be instances in Europe where willows have been pollarded successively during hundreds of years, the crops of sprouts being used for wickerwork and other purposes. No such records exist in this country, but the willow’s sprouting habit is well known. A shoot stuck in the ground will grow, and a fence post will sprout. Many willows develop large stools, or roots, and repeatedly send up numerous sprouts, and it makes little difference how often they are cut, others will come up. ”

“ In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind ”

“ The bark is used in tanning. The little branches have long been associated with baskets and woven work. American trees are seldom cut up into lumber, but are valued for shade and appearance, and are often planted along the banks of streams to prevent erosion.
Willows grow very rapidly and have a characteristic and attractive appearance. They usually prefer low moist places. There are so many hybrids and peculiar species as to render classification in all cases difficult. [50] Black willow is the native species, oftenest attaining to tree size in North America. ”

“ On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness that they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely awaited their expedition. ”

“ A pergola of Willows, leading to the ornamental water which so many gardens boast nowadays, would be a charming thing, first to leap out in the spring, and last, when its silvery leaves have turned, to drop in the autumn. Or an arbour of Willows, beside a pond or brook at an old-fashioned country place, would be a constant delight; for the Willow leaves, like the Aspens, are always fluttering, and give one the sense of a breeze even when there is none. ”

“ The winter came and the snow fell on the little spot and lay for its appointed time, exactly as on the ground.
"It is just as though I had quite a piece of the world in my head," said the willow-tree.
"It's not healthy to have too much in one's head," said the oak.
"Once I had a large and glorious crown," said the willow-tree, sadly. "Now I am satisfied and delighted with less. We must take life as it comes." ”

“ If a forest grown willow of large size is encountered east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, it is pretty safe to class it as black willow. There are some others which grow large, but not many. Planted willows, both large and small, may be foreign species, and white willows, which are not native in this country, but have been widely planted, and are running wild, may be occasionally found of ample size for saw timber.
Black willow’s range extends from New Brunswick to Florida, west to the Dakotas, and south to Texas, thence passing into Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. ”

“ In the river-valleys of the forest zone the uniformity is perhaps most conspicuous. Here the willows predominate, forming often extensive woods by the banks and on the islands, almost to the complete exclusion of other trees. Over wide stretches willows alone form the woods of the valley, and in many places the trees rise to a stately height, yet even then without often gaining in impressiveness or charm. For the isolated willow-tree is not more, but rather less picturesque than the willow bushes ”

“ The gay Bunting erects his white crest, and gives utterance to the joy he feels in the presence of his brooding mate. The Willow Grous on the rock crows his challenge aloud. Each floweret, chilled by the night air, expands its pure petals; the gentle breeze shakes from the blades of grass the heavy dewdrops. ”

“ Few genera have greater claims to notice from an economic point of view. As timber trees many of the species are valuable from their rapidity of growth and for the production of light durable wood, serviceable for many purposes. Among the best trees of this kind are S. fragilis, the crack willow (fig. 2) , especially the variety known as S. fragilis, var. Russelliana and S. alba, the white or Huntingdon willow. These trees are usually found growing by rivers' banks or in other moist situations, and are generally pollarded for the purpose of securing a crop of straight poles. ”

“ All of the willows have long, slender leaves. Each leaf is a narrow, thin, delicately veined blade that grows by itself, and alternately, along a slender stem, making a sort of feathered branch. The pussy willow leaves are a bright green. The black willow leaf is broader, saw-notched, and it tapers toward both stem and tiplike a canoe. It is bright green above and silvery underneath. The leaf of the white willow is a gray green lined with silver, and it droops from yellow stems. The crack willow, whose twigs snap so easily, has a green leaf lined with a waxy coating. ”

“ In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful. It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood is more or less decayed and worthless. ”

“ Only four of our native Willows can be regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the Crack Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the Poplars, their growth is very rapid, and their wood is consequently light, but it has the advantage of Poplar-wood in being tougher, and therefore serving for purposes where Poplar is of no value. In the present day the growers of straight-boled Willows find their best market among the makers of cricket-bats. ”

“ No trees, I think, are perfectly agreeable as companions unless they have glossy leaves, dry bark, and a firm and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the earliest to gladden us with the promise and reality of beauty in its graceful and delicate foliage, and the last to scatter its yellow yet scarcely withered leaves upon the ground. All through the winter, too, its yellow twigs give it a sunny aspect, which is not without a cheering influence even in the grayest and gloomiest day. Beneath a clouded sky it faithfully remembers the sunshine. ”

“ If only we don't catch it!"
"Oh dear no, those are buds!" said the willow-tree. "I can't understand it, but I can feel it. They are real live buds. I am turning green again, I am getting a new crown."
Then came the busiest time of the year, when every one had enough to do minding his own affairs and had no time to think about the poor willow-tree.
The stately poplars and the humble elder got new leaves. The grass shot up green beside the ditch, the corn grew in the fields, the wild rose-bush put forth her dainty leaves, so that the flowers should look their best when they arrived in July. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They all left something or other behind them; and, by the autumn, there was so much up there that, one fine day, it collapsed and quite filled up the little hole where the water was.
"You're simply keeping a public-house," said the oak.
"Why shouldn't one be kind to one's fellow-creatures?" said the willow-tree.
It was now autumn. The withered leaves blew up into the willow-tree and lay and rotted. A dragon-fly had lain down to [Pg 27] die up there in the latter part of the summer. One of the dandelion's fluffy seeds had fallen just beside her. ”

“ The 'netted willow' of the Alps and Pyrenees, which shelters itself under the lee of little jutting rocks, attains the height of only a few inches; while the 'herbaceous willow,' common on all very high mountains in Western Europe, is a tiny creeping weed, which nobody would ever take for a forest tree by origin at all, unless he happened to see it in the catkin-bearing stage, when its true nature and history would become at once apparent to him. ”

“ Who has not admired the soft gray silky buds of the "pussy" willow, swelling with the spring's impulse, and ripening quickly into a "catkin" loaded with golden pollen? Nowadays the shoots of this willow are "forced" into bud by the florists, and sold in the cities in great quantities; but really to see it one must find the low tree or bush by a stream in the woods, or along the roadside, with a chance to note its fullness of blossom. It is finest just when the hepaticas are at their bluest on the warm hillsides ”

“ 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 [94] of the fragility of the branchlets in spring. ”

“ The weeping willow, in addition to the pensive, drooping appearance of its branches, weeps little drops of water, which stand like fallen tears upon the leaves. It will grow in any but a dry soil, but most delights, and best thrives, in the immediate neighbourhood of water. ”

“ It is not, however, because the willow is the only tree that produces withes; for they may be procured also from the broom, the poplar, the elm, the blood-red cornel, the birch, and the reed itself when split, or else the leaves of that plant, as we know to be the case in Liguria. The vine, also, will furnish them; the bramble, too, with the thorns removed, as well as the twisted hazel. It is a very singular thing, that a wood after it has been beaten and pounded should be found all the stronger for making withes, but such is a striking peculiarity that exists in the willow. ”

“ Fig. 115. Leaf and Bract of Linden
The willow is dear to boys, because on the green twigs in spring the bark can be separated from the wood and a whistle or simple flute manufactured.
[106]
The wood of the willow is not very valuable, being used chiefly by pulp makers, but it grows where no other trees can exist, being found nearly all over the world, and creeping nearer to the north pole than any other broad-leaved tree except the birch. It has over one hundred and fifty varieties, which vary from small shrubs up to trees a hundred feet high. ”

“ There are about seventy-five species of willow in America, twenty of them trees. Some, however, are quite small and only occasionally attain sizes which place them in the tree class. The willows are old residents of this continent. They grew in the central portion of what is now the United States in the Cretaceous age, as is proved by their leaf prints in the rocks. They have held their ground ever since, and there is no likelihood that they are about to give it up. Few species are better fitted for holding what they have. ”

“ 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 [93] 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. ”