The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-07-24
PROFIT IN
 BASKET WILLOWS
BUREAU or FORESTRY SUGGESTS
 NEW METHOD OF GROWING.
Better Grade is Needed and There is Money in Cultivation-Reducing Cost of Raw Material Is
 Matter of Study.

Chicago Chronicle.
 | The culture and manufacture of bas- l ket willow have not attained Tn the United States the degree of perfection | and profit that mark the Industry III Europe. This Is for several reasons the most important being the relative compensation of labor and the failure of the American grower to adopt the most improved methods. The grow ing. harvesting, care and manufacture | of willow require manual labor wholly unassisted by machinery. The cheap labor of Europe has grown willow and | woven 1t into baskets at profit inn possible with us and our better paid | labor. American ingenuity has still further complicated the issue by pro- ductng a cheap split wood basket to take the place of the more expensive and durable willow. Thus an industry of good possibilities is languishing. The Bureau of Forestry has taken up the matter and given 1t careful study. Its expert has thoroughly investigated | the methods of culture and manufac- | ture both in this country and in Eng | land. Germany and Holland. In addi- l tion. the bureau has established will ! low plantation on the departments ex- perimental grounds near Washington. | D. C., where the best species of basket willows were set out on different soils and spaced in accordance with differ ! ent methods of planting. The results | of this research will shortly be made known by the bureau in a bulletin en- titled The Basket Willow
 Reducing the Cost.
 The bureaus purpose was to discover means of reducing the cost of the | raw product, peeled and unpeeled will low rods and also of improving the quality. This has been definitely as- oertained. It is entirely a matter of properly regulating the distance be- tween the sets in planting. care of cut ting the crop of rods and in selecting better species and strains of willow. The custom has been to plant in rows three feet apart, spacing a foot in the rows between the sets. A far better plan Is to put the rows only twenty inches apart and reduce the distance between the sets to nine inches. When this is done and the crop Is cut close to the ground the rods will be longer and less branchy, the plants longer lived and the yield per acre much greater. The initial cost is slightly higher than under existing methods. but this is more than offset by the in- | creased returns. At present an aver age production of six tons of green rods per @ Is exceptional; by the method now advocated by the bureau eight or more tons per acre of better rods can be produced. When to inn proved methods of culture the advant- ages from a choice of better European varieties of willows for planting are added the result will be a marked re- duction in the price of the raw mate- rial and a distinct betterment of the condition of both the producer and manufacturer.
 Germans Introduced It.
 The growing of basket willows was introduced into the United States some sixty years ago by German basket makers. who seHled in Western New York and Pennsylvania. They first at tempted to use wild willows, but soon abandoned these as impracticable and imported the purple or Welsh willow They grew the rods and. the manufac- ture into baskets was smade profita- ble by whole families engaging in the weaving. Their product has always been cheap variety of basket, since they use steam in peeling the rods which gives them an undesirable dark color. When the industry was extend ed farther west and down to the Balti- more district, Maryland, hand peeled rods were used and a much higher grade basket manufactured. But this country in the extensive use of will low ware, has never approached Flu rope. where are found not only heavy farm baskets and receptacles made of unpeeled willow, but market, clothes and fruit baskets of peeled willow, fur niture, hampers and trunks and most artistically wrought split willow ware designed for countless other uses. could all these be as cheaply manu- factured here as there their use bv us would doubtless be as extensive as that across the sea. For willow ware Is not only prettier than its substitutes, put, what is still more important lighter and more durable.
 New Use Found.
 Another use for willow in this coun- try is found in the growing demand for willow furniture, which has become fashionable in the north, while in the warm climate of the south it Is rapidly taking the place of upholstered furni- lure. Good wages can be paid in the manufacture of this kind of furniture It Is profitable industry and steadily growing in importance, while willow Dasket-making has barely held its own In the last decade. The demand for furniture material has been met to this time chiefly by importing French rods But this can be changed if our own WILLOW growers will adopt more scien- tine methods of culture and market their rods only after they are well sea- soned-not soon after cutting, as is now customary.
 In the bulletin the bureau will issue In a few days every aspect of willow culture and manufacture is exhaustive " treated. The character of the ground to be used. preliminary cultivation. cut tlns, sorting, peeling and packing. all are discussed thoroughly and advice as 10 each branch of the work Is clearly gwen. The virtues and defects of the uiHerent species of willows suited to basket manufacture are described. In- uhdation in the spring after harvest ana before the new crop season opens IS new aid in protecting the holts rom Insects and in fertilizing the sets especially advised by the bureau.
 A valuable part of the bulletin is a chapter on insects injurious to basket willows, prepared by the Bureau of entomology. This not only describes the insect enemies of the willow. but also gives methods for their control. The bulletin should prove invaluable to all present producers and manufactur- CTS of basket willow, and of great in terest to farmers who desire to add to their other crops. It can be obtained by application to the forester. United States Department ol Agriculture, Washington, D. c.
 
 Only Shaw Visits SagamOre Hill.
 oyster Bay, July 2S.-Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M Shaw is a guest of President Roosevelt at Sag