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. A good deal of it is also cut into thin strips for plaiting into chip-hats and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in extensive riverside beds for the production of long pliant shoots for the basket-weavers; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose leading shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts of our coast where the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a regular supply of such shoots for weaving into "pots" and "hullies" is a necessity, and a "withy bed" will usually be found on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace halfway up the cliffs. [Illustration: _Pl. 59._ Crack Willow--summer.] [Illustration: _Pl. 60._ Bole of Crack Willow.] [Illustration: _Pl. 61._ Crack Willow--winter.] The bark of the tree Willows has long been known to be rich in an alkaloid called _salicine_, which has tonic and astringent properties, and has often been used instead of _quinine_, though it is not nearly so powerful as the Peruvian drug. The bark is also used for tanning. The association of the Willow with sadness is very old, but there does not appear to be any satisfactory reason for it--certainly to contemplate a naturally-grown Willow that grows on the edge of a limpid stream, in which its graceful shoots and slender leaves are reflected, does not suggest sad thoughts to the average healthy mind. The association is chiefly with maidens forsaken by their false lovers, as indicated by Shakespeare when he makes Desdemona say-- "My mother had a maid called Barbara: She was in love; and he she loved proved mad, And did forsake her; she had a song of 'Willow'; An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune, And she died singing it."