CHAP. CIY. BETULA‘CE®. BE’TULA, 1699 
ground, and on the south side of the trunk. In England, several holes are sometimes bored in the 
same tree at once; but, in France, this method is thought to deprive the tree of its sap too suddenly. 
Each hole should have a kind of fosset fixed in it, which may be made of a piece of elder wood, with 
the pith scooped out, or of a large quill. ‘The outer end of this tube is placed in a vessel or large 
bladder, to reserve the sap. In some places, the collectors of the 2 cut off the extremity of each 
branch, tying a bladder or vessel to the end of the wounded part. When a sufficient quantity of sap 
has been collected, the hole in the tree is stopped with a wooden peg; or the end of the wounded 
branch is covered with pitch. This operation is always performed in spring; and most sap is said to be 
procured after a very severe winter. Several trees should be bored at the same time, in order that a 
sufficient quantity of sap may be obtained in one day, as it is spoiled by being kept, 1t has been observed 
that the sap flows in greatest abundance about noon. When the wine is to be made, the sap should 
be boiled with moist sugar or honey, in the proportion of four pounds of sugar to every gallon of 
liquor. While boiling, the scum is taken off as fast as it rises, till the liquor is quite clear. It is 
then worked with yeast in the usual way. The juice and rind (pared very thin) of a lemon, and of a 
Seville orange, may be added to every gallon of clear liquor, and will be found a great improvement. 
Some persons also put a few twigs of sweet briar into the cask when the wine is tunned, to give it a 
mes flavour ; and anciently it was the custom to put cinnamon and other spices into this wine, 
n Moscow, they add dried sprigs of mint. The wine should be kept three months before it is bottled, 
and twelve months before it is drunk. Birch wine has an agreeable flavour, and is considered very 
wholesome. ‘That made in Russia effervesces like champagne. 
Birch Oil is obtained from the bark, by a kind of distillation, which is thus effected : — An excava- 
tion is made in the soil, on the side of a bank 10 ft. or 12 ft. deep, and in the form of an inverted cone, 
like a common limekiln, which is lined in the inside with clay. The bark, being collected, and placed 
in the kiln, is covered with turf, and then ignited: the oil flows through a hole made in the bottom 
of the kiln, into a vessel placed to receive it, from which it is transferred to casks for exportation. 
The liquor produced consists of oi] and pyroligneous acid, and is used for tanning hides, to which it 
gives that powerful fragrance, so well known as peculiar to Russia leather. The oil, when purified, 
is quite clear, and is used in medicine, both internally and externally ; and the pyroligneous tar-like 
liquor, which is separated from it, is used for greasing wheels, and for other purposes. 
In the Highlands of Scotland, Sang observes, birch may be said to be the 
universal wood. “ The Highlanders make every thing of it : they build their 
houses of it; make their beds, chairs, tables, dishes, and spoons of it; con- 
struct their mills of it; make their carts, ploughs, harrows, gates, and fences 
of it; and even manufacture ropes of it.” (P/. Kal., p. 80.) The branches 
are employed as fuel in the distillation of whisky; and they are found to con- 
tribute a flavour to it far superior to that produced by the use of fir-wood, coal, 
or peat. Birch spray is also used for smoking hams and herrings, for which 
last purpose it is preferred to every other kind of wood. The bark is used 
for tanning leather, dyeing yellow, making ropes, and sometimes, as in Lap- 
land, instead of candles. The spray is used for thatching houses ; and, dried 
in summer with the leaves on, it makes an excellent material for sleeping 
upon, where heath is scarce. The wood was formerly used in the Highlands 
for arrows ; and the bark, it is said, on the sea coast, for making boats, as that 
of B. papyracea is in North America. - 
In addition to the above, we might enumerate a number of minor uses 
mentioned by authors, when speaking of the tree as belonging to the most 
northern parts of Europe; and some of which, we have reason to believe, are 
now become obsolete. Among these are what Evelyn calls “ the whitest part 
of the old wood, found commonly in doating birches,” from which, he says, is 
made “ the ground of our effeminate-formed gallants’ sweet powder ;”’ and of 
the quite consumed and rotten wood,” he says, is “ gotten the best mould 
for the raising of divers seedlings of the best plants and flowers.’ (Hunter’s 
Evelyn, vol. i. p. 224.) The use of the birch in artificial plantations, in Britain, 
is chiefly as an undergrowth, and as coppice-wood. In both cases, it is cut, 
every 5 or 6 years, for brooms, hoops, wattle-rods, crateware, &c.; every 
10 or 12 years, for faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners, the 
value of which, in Scotland, is about half that of oak bark ; and not oftener 
than once in every 15 or 20 years, when it is wanted for herring casks. In all 
these cases, the spray is used for besoms, rods, ties, and similar purposes. In 
the Highland districts, standard trees are left to attain a timber size. The 
birch, as already observed, is very frequently used as a nurse to other trees ; 
and especially to the oak, the chestnut, and other hard woods. Many of the 
extensive oak plantations made by the late Duke of Portland in Nottingham- 
shire were raised between rows of birch trees, planted two or three years 
before the acorns were sown; as has been recorded in detail by Speechly, 
and by Hunter in his edition of Evelyn’s Sylva, and in his Georgical Essays. 
Hedges are, also, frequently made of the birch in poor, mossy, or sandy soils; 
the tree bearing the shears as well as any ligneous plant whatever. 
The birch, in landscape-gardening, is an interesting tree, from its form, and 
os % 
