On Sycamores
A table-lamp of sycamore, in the excellent display of handmade furniture lately staged by the Rural Industries Bureau at the Victoria and Albert Museum, revived in my mind the question: Why are sycamores so little esteemed nowadays ? Is it that they grow like weeds and are despised accordingly? It was not always so. Herrick devoted a poem to them. Gilbert White, in front of whose house there grew a sycamore thirteen feet in girth, more than once in his journals wrote in their praise. He notes that in the month of May, apart from its fine foliage, the tree ." affords much pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like honey." I remember a visiting merchant enquiring specially for oak, walnut and sycamore. The creamy sycamore wood, 1 was told then, was in demand not only for cabinet-making but also for uses, as in brush-heads and draining-boards, in which it was important to suggest cleanliness. I thereupon planted a minute sycamore forest which on expert advice I have kept pruned to a height of eighteen feet. I cannot expect to see it felled ; but I was encouraged a year or two ago by finding that this favourite wood of mine had been chosen for the furnishing of the Mayoress's Parlour in the Swansea Guildhall. Some day, I hope, the -timber of my young trees will serve a like honourable purpose.
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