The timber of the birch, though of little value for general estate purposes, is largely employed in the arts and manufactures. It is much used for thread bobbins, turnery work, shoe pegs, hoops, and fish barrels, while it makes excellent firewood, and yields superior charcoal for smelting purposes. In Wales large quantities of birch wood are cut into clog soles, while the sabots used by the French peasantry are also made of that wood. When of large size and good figure, furniture and veneers are made of the wood, and on the Continent felloes for carriage wheels. Brooms and switches are made of the smaller branches or sprays, while the bark is used for tanning, and an oil expressed from it is employed in the preparation of the well-known and fragrant Russian leather. [Illustration: STEM OF THE TRUE “CRICKET BAT” WILLOW (_Salix cærulea_)] The =White= or =Huntingdon Willow= (_Salix alba_).—Whether for ornament or utility the White or Huntingdon Willow must be considered as one of our most valuable trees. The timber sells readily at all prices up to 10_s_. per cubic foot, and when it is considered that the tree will succeed in dampish ground where most other species decline to grow, and that it is of rapid growth, attaining maturity in less than forty years, its value in economic planting will be recognized. At the outset it may be well to point out that the wood of the particular willow from which the best class of cricket bats are manufactured sells at a higher rate than any other timber that is cultivated in this country. There are many kinds of willows found growing throughout the British Isles, but one alone produces the particular class of wood from which first-class bats are turned out. Until quite lately the timber of the White or Huntingdon Willow (_Salix alba_) was largely used in the making of cricket bats, but it has been found that a cross between that species and the crack willow (_S. fragilis_), and named _S. cærulea_, produces by far the best wood for the manufacture of high-grade cricket bats. In the trade the “Cricket Bat Willow,” as it is now known throughout England, is popularly designated as the close-barked willow in order to readily distinguish it from the open-barked or crack willow. Confusion generally exists in determining the various forms of willow, but in _S. cærulea_ the branches incline upwards; indeed, the tree has a semi-fastigiate form of growth, and the branches also have an upward tendency. The bark is a dark grey, with long, straight, narrow fissures closely arranged and from which the term “close-barked” is derived. The leaves are of a bluish tint or covered with bluish-grey hairs beneath and long and narrow in shape, while an unerring point of difference between the hybrid and other willows is that the tree produces only female flowers. It may be well to mention in connexion with the crack willow that the bark fissures are far more rugged and