there's lots of farmer with fields of immature willow.

I've just built a yurt out of a couple of hundred willow rods that were
destined for that power station near Selby. Allowing that venture to
collapse was really crazy.


If I were planting oaks I would plant some bent ones

I don't think you actually plant bent ones. There have been various
methods of getting oaks to produce curves for shipbuilding and hose
crucks including training the sapling and planting them in double rows
with conifers between so that they grow outwards away from the
conifers. Generally, oaks grown on their own and in hedgerows produce
curved branches while oaks grown closely spaced with other species as a
nurse to draw them up produce straight boles. Much of the modern
amenity planting should actually produce a good crop of oak timber in
80 - 120 years if the other species are thinned out at the right time.

60p...That actually sounds expensive

It's barley straw, which produces less ash than wheat and for which
there is a market. By the time the farmer has put it into my barn I
don't think she will have become very rich on what I pay. We're both
happy though.