BET 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



BET 



and when of a. proper size, it will make tolerable gates, rails, 

 &c. In France, it is generally used for wooden shoes. It 

 affords good fuel, some of the best charcoal ; and the soot is 

 a good lamp-black for printers' ink. The small branches 

 serve the Highlanders for hurdles and side fences to their 

 houses. Moxa is made of the yellow fungous excrescences of 

 the wood, which sometimes swell out from the fissures. The 

 leaves afford good fodder to horses, cows, sheep, and goats. 

 The seeds are the favourite food pf the siskin, or aberdevine ; 

 and the tree also furnishes food for a variety of insects. The 

 vernal sap of the Birch-tree is well known to have a saccha- 

 rine quality, and to make a wholesome diuretic wine. In 

 order to obtain this juice, in the beginning of March, while 

 the sap is rising, and before the leaves Shootout, bore holes 

 in the bodies of the largest trees, and put fossets therein, 

 made of Elder sticks with the pitch taken out, setting vessels 

 under to receive the liquor. If the tree be large, you may 

 tup it in four or five places at a time.: and thus from several 

 trees you may draw several gallons of juice in a day. If you 

 do not obtain enough in one day, bottle up close what you 

 have, until you have extracted sufficient for your purpose ; 

 but the sooner it is boiled, the better. Boil the sap as long as 

 any scum rises, skimming it all the time. To every gallon of 

 liquor put four pounds of sugar, alld boil it afterwards half 

 an hour, skimming it well ; then put it into an open tub to 

 cool, and when cold, turn it into a cask ; when it has done 

 working, bung it up close, and keep it three months ; then 

 either bottle it off, or draw it out of the cask when it is a year 

 old. This juice is an excellent medicine against the scurvy, 

 and other similar disorders. It removes obstructions, pro- 

 motes urine, and, if taken pretty freely, loosens the belly. 

 Fermented with yeast, it yields a vinous liquor, which is far 

 from being unpleasant, and is said to be good for the stone 

 and gravel. The leaves and bark of the tree, resolve, clean, 

 and resist putrefaction. A decoction of thqm may be advan- 

 tageously employed to bathe cutaneous eruptions with, and is 

 also serviceable in the dropsy. This tree deserves to be 

 planted in parks and ornamental woods, to increase the vari- 

 ety, and its fragrant smell after rain justly entitles it to a place 

 in the wilderness. The stem being straight, the bark smooth 

 and white, and the foliage neat, the Birch has a picturesque 

 appearance, when properly placed in ornamental plantations; 

 either in the openings here and there, to show the foliage and 

 hanging down of the twigs ; or within, to display its silvery 

 bark through the gloom. Though it is in the lowest esteem 

 as a timber tree, it may yet deserve to be cultivated, not 

 merely as an ornament, but for its various uses ; especially as 

 it will grow to advantage upon barren land,where better trees 

 will not thrive : it will flourish in moist spungy land, or in 

 dry gravel and sand, where there is little surface ; upon ground 

 which produced nothing but moss, these trees have succeeded 

 so well as to be fit to cut in ten years after planting, when 

 they have been sold for nearly ten pounds the acre standing, 

 and the after-produce has been considerably increased ; and 

 as the woods near London have been grubbed up, the value 

 of these plantations has advanced in proportion : therefore 

 those persons who are possessed of such poor land, cannot 

 employ it better than by planting it with these trees, espe- 

 cially as the expense of doing it is not great. The best me- 

 thod to cultivate it, is to furnish yourself with young plants 

 from the woods where they naturally grow ; but in places 

 where there are no young plants to \)n procured, they may be 

 raised from seeds, which should be carefully gathered in the 

 autumn, as soon as the scales under which they lodge begm 

 to open, otherwise they will soon fall out and be lost : the 

 seeds being small, should not be buried deep in the ground, 

 VOL. i. 15. 



a quarter of an inch is sufficient. They should be planted in 

 autumn, or from the middle of October till the middle of 

 March, in the shade, where they will thrive better than when 

 they are exposed to the full sun ; for in all places where there 

 are any large trees, the seeds fall, and the plants come up 

 well without care ; so that if the young plants are not destroy- 

 ed by cattle, there is generally plenty of them in all the woods 

 where there is any of these trees. If the plants take kindly to 

 the ground, they will be fit to cut in about ten years ; and 

 afterwards they may be cut every seventh or eighth year, if 

 they are designed for the broom-makers only ; but where 

 they are intended for hoops, they should not be cut oftener 

 than every twelfth year. The expense of making these 

 plantations, in places where the young plants can be easily 

 procured, will not exceed forty shillings per acre, and the 

 after-expense of clearing, about twenty shillings more ; so 

 that the whole will not be more than three pounds : and if 

 the land so planted be of little value, the proprietor cannot 

 make better use of his money ; for when the wood is cut, it 

 repays the expense with interest, and a perpetual stock upon 

 the ground. The several varieties of this species are of too 

 trifling a nature to be here enumerated. 



2. Betula Nigra ; Black Virginia Birch-tree. Leaves rhomb- 

 ovate, acute, doubly serrate, pubescent underneath, entire 

 at the base ; scales of the strobiles villose ; segments linear 

 equal. Although this species has been hitherto propagated 

 chiefly for ornamental plantations, it is to be hoped that it 

 will be admitted among our forest trees, for it is equally 

 hardy with the European White Birch, and attains to a much 

 greater size, growing upwards of sixty feet high, and thriving 

 on the most barren ground, and may be cultivated to great 

 advantage in England, in the same manner as the first 

 species ; which see. There are several varieties of this- 

 species, differing in the colour, size of the leaves, and 

 shoots ; such as the Broad-leaved Virginia, the Poplar- 

 leaved Virginia, the Paper Birch, Brown Birch, &c. 



3. Betula Lenta 5 Canada Bircli. Leaves cordate oblong, 

 acuminate, serrate. It grows to sixty feet or more in height. 

 The liquor flowing from its wounds is used by the inhabit- 

 ants of Kamtschatka without previous fermentation ; with 

 the wood they build sledges and canoes ; and they convert 

 the bark into food by stripping it off when green, and 

 cutting it into long narrow pieces, like vermicelli, drying 

 it, and stewing it with their caviar. Of this species, which 

 is propagated in the same manner as the first, there are 

 also several varieties not worth noticing. 



4. Betula Nana ; Smooth Dwarf Birch. Leaves orbicu- 

 late, crenate,or circular, scollopped. This is an upright shrub, 

 seldom above two or three feet high ; trunk hard and stiff, 

 with a roughish bark, like that of the Elm, of a russet or 

 blackish purple colour. It flowers in May, and is a native 

 of the northern parts of Europe. This plant, the leaves of 

 which, according to Linneus, dye a better yellow than the 

 common Birch, is of signal use in the economy of the Lap- 

 landers ; the branches furnishing them with their bed, and 

 their chief fuel. The seeds are the food of the ptarmigan, 

 which makes so considerable a part of their sustenance. 

 The moxa is also prepared from it, which the Laplanders 

 consider as an efficacious remedy in all painful diseases. 



5. Betula Pumila ; American or Hairy Dwarf Birch. 

 Leaves obovate, crenate. It is a native of North America, 

 cultivated only in the gardens of the curious. 



6. Betula Alnus ; Alder. Peduncles branched ; leaves 

 roundish, wedge-form, very obtuse, glutinous : axils of the 

 veins villose underneath. Though this species appears gene- 

 rail v as a shrub, it will grow to a considerable tree, thirty-five 



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