Many of the questions posed when I meet people that smoke
my pipes concern the briar that I use to make Americans. Since I can't meet
all of my customers in person, I have prepared this series of photos that
I took on a buying trip to Greece.
The wood blocks that pipes are made of are cut from the burl of the briar
bush, scientific name Erica arborea, which is part of the Heath family.
These bushes are generally under 10 feet high and the burl grows at ground
level, the trunk of the bush growing up and the roots growing down. Briar
grows in the arid, agriculturally unproductive land surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea. The best briar available today comes from Greece. Algeria was a source
for many years, but over harvesting and the ravages of World War II ended
this.
Because of its severe habitat, briar grows very slowly. A marketable burl
must be 40 years old before it can be harvested. Larger pipes would require
an older burl. Larger burls from 100-year-old briars are becoming exceedingly
hard to find. This is compounded by the fact that all easily accessible
sources of briar have been used up and the back breaking labor of digging
up burls must be accomplished without the help of power tools. Young workers
are less inclined to do this hard work and find employment in the cities
to be more remunerative and much easier.
Once the burls are dug up, they must be protected from drying out until
they can have what little sap which is in them removed by boiling. The burls
are placed in piles and covered by briar branches.
Then they can be transported, with mules, to the briar-cutting
factory. Once there they are placed in heaps and are constantly watered
to keep them from drying out.
The burls are next taken into the cutting room where the
cutters perform their amazing task.
The burls, which have been constantly wet since being dug, are by now very
slippery and irregularly shaped. The cutters sit before open saw blades
and, working without any guards or safety devices, proceed to cut the burls
into blocks
.
Why more
of these courageous workmen are not missing fingers is a mystery. While
they are working, the cutters have in mind what kind of block they want
to end up with. Plateaux blocks are cut from the outer section of the burl
with the rough natural surface left on the top of the block. This will
yield the fine straight grain much prized by collectors. If the cutter
is concerned only with a block of less quality, called an ebauchon, he
is no longer concerned about grain direction but only with getting the
largest block possible. Blocks cut for plateaux are much more wasteful,
and this is one reason why they are so expensive.