r selection, yet
it is evident that the woodmen are not very particular on this score,
for they have in general an ungainly appearance; and many are so
crooked and rough, that no drover or country boy would think it worth
while to polish the like of them with his knife. Having arrived at
this place, however, their numerous excrescences are soon pruned away,
and their ugliness converted into elegance. When sufficiently seasoned
and fit for working, they are first laid to soak in wet sand, and
rendered more tough and pliable; a workman then takes them one by one,
and securing them with an iron stock, bends them skillfully this way
and that, so as to bring out their natural crooks, and render them at
last all straight even rods. If they are not required to be knotted,
they next go to the "trapper," who puts them through a kind of
circular plane, which takes off knots, and renders them uniformly
smooth and round. The most important process of all is that of giving
them their elegantly curved handles, for which purpose they are passed
over to the "crooker." Every child knows that if we bend a tough stick
moderately when the pressure is discontinued, it will soon fly back,
more or less, to its former position; and if we bend it very much,
it will break. Now the crooker professes to accomplish the miracle of
bending a stick as it might be an iron wire, so that it shall neither
break nor "backen." To prevent the breaking, the wood is rendered
pliant by further soaking in wet sand; and a flexible band of metal
is clamped down firmly to that portion of the stick that will form the
outside of the curve; the top end is then fitted into a grooved iron
shoulder which determines the size of the crook, the other end being
brought round so as to point in the opposite direction; the metal
band during this process binding with increasing tightness against the
stretching fibers of the wood, so that they cannot snap or give way
under the strain. The crook having been made, the next thing is to fix
it, or remove from the fibers the reaction of elasticity, which would
otherwise, on the cessation of the bending force, cause it to backen
more or less, and undo the work. In the old process of crooking by
steam, as timber bending is effected, the stick was merely left till
it was cold to acquire a permanent set; but in the new process, a more
permanent set is given by turning the handle about briskly over a jet
of gas. The sticks being now fashion