It very often occurs that after a tree has been cut down a number of canes or suckers will start up from the stump. These suckers make excellent walking-sticks when properly cured and peeled. For a lady’s riding-whip I know of nothing better than three willow withes plaited together. This plaiting must be done when the willow withes are young, and when attached to the parent tree, on which they are allowed to remain for a year after having been plaited together. By this time they will have grown firmly together in consequence of the bark conforming to the bent strands of the plait.
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The following kinds of native woods are used for walking-sticks:
HOLLY.—Sticks of this wood are found growing out from the sides of older growths, and shooting up in nearly a straight line. Occasionally they may be cut with a crutch-piece across the growing end, or with a crook or knob. These are the most valuable. They may be found on a well-grown sapling in the deep woods. This should be pulled or dug up for the sake of its roots. Saplings and hedge-sticks may often be found from three to four feet long, and from three-eighths to a quarter of an inch in diameter. These are not suitable for walking-sticks, but they make excellent whip-handles. The holly makes tough, supple, and moderately heavy walking-sticks, and its close-grained wood admits of much skill in carving the knob formed by the root and its rootlets.
ASH.—Respectable sticks of this wood may sometimes be cut out of a hedge or pulled from the side of an old stump. Ash sticks must also be roughly trimmed and well seasoned before they are barked and polished. The root knobs admit of excellent grotesque carving.
OAK.—This of all sticks is the most reliable, and stout oaken cudgels are esteemed by most persons as affording the best props for failing legs, as well as the best weapons of self-defence against quarrelsome dogs, ruffians, and tramps. Straight sticks of sapling oak are not always easily obtained, but copse-wood sticks pulled from the trunks of trees form excellent substitutes. These should be selected for walking-sticks that taper from one inch below the knob or crutch to one inch at the ferrule end. Oak sticks split in drying when the bark has been stripped off or the knobs and branches cut too close, or when the sticks are dried too rapidly in a very dry place. They are then rendered useless for walking-sticks and cudgels.