ek according to aptitude. The Basketmakers' Company is one of
the oldest craft gilds of the city of London and still exists.

Employment is given by the London Association for the Welfare of the Blind
to a number of partially or wholly blind workpeople, who are engaged in the
making of some of the coarser kinds of baskets; but the work, which bears
obvious traces of its origin, is not commercially remunerative, and the
association depends for partial support on the contributions of the
charitable, and on supplementary sales of fine or fancy work produced under
ordinary conditions and largely imported. Similar associations exist in
some English provincial towns, in Edinburgh, in Dublin and Belfast, and in
certain European cities.

The materials which are actually employed in the construction of
basket-work are numerous and varied, but it is from certain species of
willow that the largest supply of basket-making materials is produced.
Willows for basket-work are extensively grown on the continent of Europe,
whence large quantities are exported to Great Britain and the United
States; but no rods surpass those of English growth for their tough and
leathery texture, and the finest of basket-making willows are now
cultivated in England--in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and the valleys
of the Thames and the Trent. In the early part of the 19th century,
considerable attention was given in Britain to the cultivation of willows
suitable for basket-making, and the industry was first stimulated by
premiums offered by the Society of Arts. Mr William Scaling of Basford,
Notts, was a most successful grower and published some admirable pamphlets
on the cultivation of willows. The most extensive English willow plantation
or salicetum (Lat. _salix_, willow) of the present day is that planted by
Mr W. P. Ellmore at Thurmaston near Leicester, and consists of about 100
acres of the finest qualities. Mr Ellmore, a practical basket-maker,
successfully introduced some valuable continental varieties (see OSIER).

Willows are roughly classed by the basket-maker into "osier" and "fine."
The former consists of varieties of the true osier, _Salix viminalis_; the
latter of varieties of _Salix triandra_, _S. purpurea_ and some other
species and hybrids of tougher texture. For the coarsest work, dried
unpeeled osiers, known as "brown stuff," are used; for finer work, "white
(peeled) stuff" and "buff" (willows stained a tawny hue by boiling them
pre