the range of uses to , birch wood is put is surp. ,-iy 



large. According to the department * the articles Into which it 

 goes range from church pev;s to kitchen tables, and from organ 

 pipes to newel posts, Vfe nay Itave our first sleep in a birch 

 crib and our last in a birch coffin. The spools on which we 

 Get our cotton and silk thread are birch spools, and the lasts 

 on which our shoes are hiade are likely to be birch lasts. The 

 largest of the spools hold in, 000 yards, the .c^allest 20 yards. 

 The wood's beauty, strength, and rigidity wake it prominent as 

 -a material for musical iiustrvurtent*, and the sane qualities brine 

 it into extensive use for flooring. 



Many people have an idea that *hoe pegs have nearly passed 

 out of use, but the amount of birch previously Mentioned as made 

 into pegs and shanks yearly in 17 aw England seewb to disprove 

 this notion. Birch, the department says, is often put on the mar- 

 ket in imitation of other woods, and we raay open roany ?. door, sit 

 on many a chair, and write on many a desk which we imagine to be 

 mahogany, but which it: really birch stained to resenble the genu- 

 ine article. 



Nine species of birch grow in the United States, but sweet, 

 yellow, paper, and river birch are those most used. About 

 45,000,000 board feet of the wood finds its way to the market 

 yearly. Paper birch is one of the few American species v;ith a 

 hold on the forest stronger than it had when America was discov- 

 ered. Large tracts are now covered with this birch where there 

 was little of it a century aco* It comes in after fire, and so re- 

 tracts it has taken possession of cover hundreds of square miles. 



JL .'i. 

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