Sometimes, pending gardening, dung-spreading and hoeing, a man will leave
his employer and set up on his own as a small capitalist, purchasing an acre or so of underwoods fit for cutting. Here he will work all day long, with bill-hook and slasher. He needs, besides, only a roll of wire and a strong pair of gloves. Thus equipped, he will turn every twig of undergrowth either to cash or to use. When lie has finished, what had been a tangle of underwoods will be sorted out and tied at the copse's edge into neat bundles of firing, faggots, pea-sticks, bean-sticks, rick-pegs and folding stakes. Of firing there will be little, as most timber too big to make a folding stake for sheep-hurdles is counted a tree and outside the contract. Straight and smooth growth, hazel for example, is preferred for rick-pegs, pea-sticks and bean-sticks, the latter selected from the longest and strongest branches. Anything else, except thorn, will make a faggot. A few blows with the bill-hook reduces the outspread fan of oak or elm to a slim, manageable bundle.
FRANK PREWETT.
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