It was better to avoid him.
Indoors, they would have put a very heavy hand upon the notion had they known of it: so we had to rely solely upon the teaching of experiment.
In the first attempt, a stick that had been put by for the thatcher, but which he had not yet split, was cut short and sharpened for the plug that prevents the animal carrying away the wire when snared.

This is driven into the earth; at the projecting end a notch was cut to hold the string attached to the end of the wire away from the run.
A smaller stick supported the wire above the ground; this latter only just sufficiently thrust into the sward to stand firmly upright.

Willow was used for this at first; but it is a feeble wood: it split too much, or bent and gave way instead of holding the wire in its place.

The best for the purpose we found were the nut-tree rods that shoot up among the hazel thickets, no larger than the shaft of an arrow, and almost as straight.

A slit about half an inch deep was made in the upper end, and in this slit the shank of the wire was sunk.