Pollard
Pollard names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Pollard a tree cut back nearly to the trunk so
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a tree cut back nearly to the trunk so as to produce a great number of spreading branches. In many parts of Europe, especially France and Holland, pollarding is a common practice. The roadways are lined with pollarded willows, poplars, and other trees. The branches are cut off yearly and at regular intervals. The trunks present an unsightly, stubby appearance, but appear to be sound and rugged. Judging from their size, many of these hoary old pollards are centuries old. The shoots of the willow pollards are much used in basketry. The branches of other pollards are cut chiefly into stove length and tied up into bundles called faggots and are sold as firewood. In Paris, for instance, a bundle of small twigs made into a faggot perhaps eighteen inches in length and ten inches in diameter is worth twenty cents at retail. Pollards are of common occurrence in basket-making countries, but otherwise are seldom seen excepting in countries where fuel is very high. See Willow
Pollard ALBERT FREDERIC, an English historian and writer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALBERT FREDERIC, an English historian and writer; born in 1869, and educated at Oxford University. From January, 1893, until 1901 he was the assistant editor of the "Dictionary of National Biography," serving at the same time on the faculties of Victoria University, Manchester, and in Cambridge University. In 1916 he became Creighton Lecturer in the University of London, a position which he now holds. His best known historical work is his "Reign of Henry VII.," from contemporary sources, 3 volumes, published in 1913.
Pollard the name given to a tree the head of
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name given to a tree the head of which has been lopped off about 8 or 10 feet from the ground, in order to induce it to send out bushy shoots, which are cut periodically for basket making, fuel, fencing, or other purposes.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 note that pollards are "seldom seen excepting in countries where fuel is very high" now reads as a period detail: the firewood faggot trade it describes has all but vanished in western Europe, and willow rods for basketry are a craft rather than an industry. Pollarding itself survives, but chiefly for two reasons the old entries do not mention — keeping street and avenue trees, especially planes and limes, within bounds in cities, and deliberate conservation cutting to prolong the life of ancient pollards in places such as Epping Forest and Hatfield Forest, where the hollow, stubby trunks Aiton thought "unsightly" are now prized as habitat for insects, bats and fungi. As for A. F. Pollard, whom Collier's caught in 1921 as Creighton Lecturer at London, he went on to hold a chair of English history there and was the driving force behind the founding of the Institute of Historical Research in London; he died in 1948, and his Tudor books, once standard, are now read mainly as landmarks in the historiography of Henry VII, Henry VIII and Wolsey rather than as current accounts.
Written for this edition, 2026.