The Presidential Address.
27
quantities of wheat and barley were exported by the Romans
from Kent, and the Celts grew oats and rye also, besides flax
and a considerable quantity of stock. Besides their celebrated
willow baskets49 they manufactured cloth, dyeing it black
with the bark of the Alder, and flesh-coloured with that of
the Willow.60 Though this may refer to the Gauls of the
Continent, they are also said to have sought to add to the
terrific aspect of their bodies, tattooed with woad, by dyeing
their hair and moustaches of a red colour, with a mixture of
goats' fat and the ashes of Beech-wood.51 Should this refer
to Britain it has an unnoticed importance as bearing on the
indigenous character of the Beech. The smelting of iron
and silver belong apparently to late Celtic, but pre-Roman
times. This would undoubtedly cause the more rapid clear-
ing of forest, though perhaps the natural reproduction of
timber would counterbalance not only the consumption for
ordinary fuel, but also that for wrought iron in the early days
of the manufacture.52 This, however, concerns Sussex, and
not our county.
49 The word "basket'' (Latin, "bascauda") is undoubtedly of Celtic
origin, and "willow" possibly so. "Other plant-names may be added
which are probably British, as willow. This may well be traced to the
Welsh helig as its nearer relative, without interfering with the more
distant claims of tough, sallow, salix. Whin, also, and furze have
perhaps a right here. And eglantine, which has become the standard
poetic name for the dog-rose, and which has such a French air, due to
its having been adopted from the poetry of the Fabliaux, is very pro-
bably a British word. With strong probability also may we add to this
botanical list the terms husk, haw ; and more particularly cod. ... In
Anglo-Saxon times it meant a bag, a purse or wallet. . . Thence it
was applied to the seed-bags of plants, as pease-cod. This seems to be
the Welsh cwd. The puff-ball is in Welsh cwd-y-mwg, a bag of smoke."—
Earle, 'Philology of the English Tongue,' p. 21.
50 James Logan, 'The Scottish Gael,' vol. i, chap. vi.
51 "Prodest et sapo, Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis : fit ex
sebo et cinere. Optimus fagino et caprino."—Pliny, Hist. Nat., xxviii.,
51 (The reference in Mr. Elton's work is incorrect).
52 "The drain upon the woodland would necessarily be less in the
earlier times, when iron was got direct from the ore in the malleable
state, than when blast furnaces were introduced, and cast iron was first
got, to be afterwards converted into malleable iron..... The exact