Hazel - Rods A hazel-copse attracts more than nut-gatherers. Everyone in need
of a stout stick, some poles for the garden, or even a shaft for a hammer, goes to the hazels. When the quarrymen looked after their own tools, they used to visit the copse up the valley and cut shafts for their hammers. The hammers have to have great resilience in their shafts, for they are used to crack limestone rocks. Going through among the clumps, one can see how many hazel-rods are cut. Here a boy haggled one off with his pen-knife, and there a farmer used a hedging tool to cut a couple of dozed. Examination of the growth shows that the hazels have provided rods for many years. In the heart of the bushes the slashed ends are black and dry, and snap at a touch. A quarryman tells me that it used to be a Sunday expedition to get hammer-shafts, a furtive expedition. The owners of the place were on the look-out, to say nothing of the good people who went to chapel.
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