CHAP. CV.

CORYLA'cEiE. CO'llYLUS.

2023

cabinets, tea-chests, &c. The great use of the hazel, however, is for under-growth. Being extremely tough and flexible, the root shoots are used formaking crates, hurdles, hoops, wattles, walkingsticks, fishing-rods, whiphandles, ties for faggots, springes to catch birds, and for fastening down thethatch, and for withs and bands for general purposes. A strong fence is madeby driving stakes into the ground, and wattling the space between them withhazel rods. Evelyn tells us that out-houses, and even cottages, were some-times made in this manner. In the county of Durham , particularly in theVale of Derwent, hazel coppices are grown extensively for what are calledcorf rods, and hoops for coopers. The corf rods are from f in. to £ in. indiameter, and are used for making the baskets called corves, employed fordrawing coals out of the pits. {Bailey's Survey of Durham , p. 187.) It is muchgrown, in Staffordshire , for crates for the potters; but, generally speaking,(though, if left a sufficient time, it will afford poles 20 ft. in length), it is foundso inferior to other undergrowths, that Farey, in his excellent Derbyshire Re-port, advises the grubbing of it up, and replacing it with ash and oak. Healso objects to it for hedgerows, on account of the temptation it offers to boys’to break the hedges, in order to get at the nuts ; and because the leaves andyoung shoots are said to be injurious to cattle if eaten by them, and to pro-duce the disease called the red water. {Gen. View, &c., vol. ii. p. 91.) Hazelrods, cut as nearly as possible of the same size, and varnished, form an admi-rable material for constructing rustic garden seats, like that shown in Jig, 1944.,

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and flower-baskets {Jig. 1945.). An agreeable variety may be produced byusing the rods alternately peeled, and with their bark on ; or by mixing themwith rods of some other kind of wood. Unpeeled hazel rods are, however,both handsomer and more durable than similar rods of any other kind of tree;and a variety may be produced in them by choosing them with bark of dif-ferent shades ; or even staining them with a decoction of logwood, or otherdye, and then arranging them in a pattern, as shown in the arbour Jig. 1946.Mr. Matthews, a carpenter residing at Frimley in Berkshire, has carried thisidea still further, and, by an ingenious arrangement of different-coloured hazelrods, he produces a complete landscape, which, seen at a little distance, has avery striking effect. (See Gard. Mag., vol. ix. p. 678.) Faggots of hazel arem great demand for heating ovens ; and the charcoal, which is very light, is