216 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



require very little pruning, and their after-care, when in planta- 

 tions, is equally simple. 



" Young birch plants which have been pulled out of coppice 

 woods, when about two years old, are found to root much bet- 

 ter than seedlings of the same age and size taken out of a reg- 

 ular seed-bed ; doubtless because, in the latter case, a greater 

 proportion of the taproot requires to be cut off. In the case of 

 the young birches pulled out of the copses, the taproot, which 

 could not get far down into the hard soil, has its substance in a 

 more concentrated form, and is more branching ; hence, little 

 requires to be cut off it, except the ragged rootlets, or fibres ; 

 and it may be considered as acting as a bulb to the upper part 

 of the plant. The tops of these seedling birches are shortened 

 before planting; and the plants, Mr. Young informs us, make 

 as much wood in one year as regular nursery-reared birch seed- 

 lings will in two." 



"In France and Germany, plantations of birch are frequently 

 made by sowing the seed where the trees are intended finally to 

 remain. For this purpose, the poorest soils are harrowed in hu- 

 mid weather, in the month of October, or of November, and 

 fifteen pounds of seed, as it is taken from the catkins along with 

 the scales, is sown on an acre, and afterwards covered with a 

 bush harrow. Where the ground is under corn, the seed is 

 sown with the last corn crop, as clover is in England; and, 

 where it abounds with weeds and bushes, these are set fire to, 

 early in the autumn, and the seed sown as soon afterwards as 

 it is gathered from the trees. It is observed by Michaux, that 

 burnt soil is peculiarly favorable to the growth of the birch, 

 which in America reappears, as if by enchantment, in forests 

 that have been burnt down." — Loudon, p. 1702. 



Sp. 6. The Dwarf Birch. B. Glandulosa. Michaux. 



The dwarf birch is a handsome little shrub, not above two 

 feet high, which is found far north, on Hudson's Bay, and in 

 mountainous regions as far south as New Jersey and Pennsyl- 

 vania. It is found in a few places in this State, in wet mead- 

 ows, on or by the side of mountains. 



