11 MAY 1944, Page 13

VERGIL'S BASKETS

SIR,—In The Spectator of April 28th you publish a letter from a correspondent containing a quotation from Book I of Vergil's Georgics. Vergil recommends basket-making as an employment for odd times on the farm, and he says that they should be made of bramble or, perhaps we should translate, raspberry boughs. Vergil generally knows what he is talking about in rustic matters, but in point of fact has anybody now living ever tried making baskets of either? Professional basket-makers mostly use half a dozen different varieties of the Genus Salix, and maintain that good baskets can only be made with osiers and willow withes. In the years before the war the industry appears to have been on the decline, not only in this country, but also in the Netherlands and Belgium. Baskets are now difficult to get and very expensive. Leaving raspberries out of account for the moment, we must admit that blackberry bushes are all too common in this country. Can any of your readers throw any light on methods of using their long trailing boughs for basket-making? And how do you get rid of the thores?—