iro 



BET 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL ; 



BET 



or forty feet in height. It is a native of Europe, from Lapland 

 to Gibraltar, and of Asia, from the White Sea to mount Cau- 

 casus, in wet and boggy grounds, and on the banks of rivers; 

 flowering with us in March and April. There are many 

 varieties, of which our limits will not admit ; but there is a 

 long-leaved Alder from America, which grows to thirty feet in 

 height, and merits a place in all plantations. The branches 

 are slender, smooth, numerous, and dark-brown, or purple; 

 the leaves are long, and free from the clamminess of the 

 common sort : they sometimes continue on the tree even in 

 December, and it has then the appearance of an evergreen. 

 The wood of the Alder is valuable for piles, pipes, pumps, 

 sluices, and in general for all works intended to be constantly 

 under water. It is said to have been used under the Rialto at 

 Venice; and weare told that themorassesaboutRavenna were 

 piled with it, in order to lay the foundations for building 

 upon. In Flanders and Holland, it is raised in abundance 

 for this purpose. It serves also many domestic and rural 

 uses, as for cart wheels, spinning-wheels, milk-vessels, bowls, 

 spoons,small trays, trenchers,and other turnery ware,troughs, 

 handles of tools, clogs, pattens, and wooden heels. The roots 

 and knots furnish a beautiful veined wood for cabinets. The 

 Scotch Highlanders often make chairs with it, which are very 

 handsome, and the colour of Mahogany. The wood that has 

 lain in bogs, is black like Ebony. It is very generally plant- 

 ed for coppice wood, to be cut down every ninth or tenth 

 year for poles ; and the branches make good charcoal. The 

 bark is used by tanners and leather-dressers ; also by fisher- 

 men for their nets. This, and also the young shoots, dye 

 yellow, and, with a little copperas, a yellowish gray, very 

 useful in the demi-tints and shadows of flesh in tapestry. 

 The shoots cut in March will dye a cinnamon colour ; and a 

 fine tawny, if they be dried and powdered. The fresh wood 

 yields a dye the colour of rappee-snuff. The catkins dye 

 green. The bark is used as a basis for blacks ; an ounce of 

 it dried and powdered, boiled in three quarters of a pint of 

 water, with an equal quantity of logwood, with solution of 

 copper, tin, and bismuth, six grains of each, and two drops 

 of solution of iron vitriol, will dye a strong deep bone de 

 Paris. The leaves have been sometimes employed in tan- 

 ning leather. The Laplanders chew the bark, and dye their 

 leather garments Bed with their saliva. The whole tree is 

 very astringent. Motherby says, a decoction of the bark of 

 the Alder has been often known to cure agues, and is fre- 

 quently used by country people, to repel inflammatory tumors 

 in the throat, and parts adjacent. According to Tournefort, 

 the peasants on the Alps are frequently cured of rheumatic 

 complaints, by being covered with bags full of the heated 

 leaves. The bark possesses a considerable degree of astrin- 

 gency, and a decoction of it may be advantageously employ- 

 ed to bathe swellings and inflammations. It dyes woollen of 

 a reddish colour, and, with the addition of copperas, black. 

 The Alder makes good hedges by the sides of streams and 

 ditches, and in all wet morassy soils, and serves to keep up 

 the banks ; but if it be planted in a low meadow, it is said 

 that the ground surrounding it will become boggy ; whereas, 

 if Ash be planted, the roots of which penetrate a great way, 

 and run near the surface, the ground will become firm and 

 dry. The shade of Alder seems to be no material impedi- 

 ment to the growth of grass. The boughs cut in summer, 

 spread over the land, and left during the winter to rot, are 

 found to answer as a manure, clearing the ground in March 

 of the undecayed parts, and then ploughing it. The fresh- 

 gathered leaves are covered with a glutinous liquor, in which 

 fleas are said to entangle themselves, as birds do in lime. 

 Linneus says, that horses, cows, sheep, and goats, eat it, but 



that swine refuse it. The tongues of horses feeding upon it 

 are turned black, and it is supposed by some persons not to 

 be wholesome for them. The Alder delighting in a very moist 

 soil, where few other trees will thrive, is a great improvement 

 to such lands. It is propagated by layers, cuttings, or trun- 

 cheons about three feet in length. The best time for plant- 

 ing truncheons is in February, or the beginning of March ; 

 they should be sharpened at one end, and the ground should 

 be loosened with an iron crow before they are thrust into it, 

 that the bark may not be torn off. They must be planted at 

 least two feet deep, to prevent their being blown out of the 

 ground by strong winds, after they have made their shoots. 

 The plantations should be cleared at first of tall weeds ; but 

 when the trees have made good heads, they will require no 

 farther care. If you raise them by layers, this operation 

 must be performed in October, and by the October follow- 

 ing they will have taken root sufficiently to be transplanted. 

 They should be set at least a foot and a half deep in the 

 ground ; and their tops must be cut off to about nine inches 

 above the surface, which will occasion them to shoot out 

 many branches. In planting Alders for coppices, it is much 

 better to raise them from young trees than from truncheons. 

 To obtain a quantity of these, plant suckers, and head them 

 down for stools ; lay the shoots in the succeeding autumn, 

 and in twelve months they will have taken root ; then remove 

 and plant them in rows ; in one or two years, they may be 

 planted where they are to remain. If the coppice is to b 

 on boggy or watery ground, they may be removed from the 

 nursery, and planted three feet asunder in holes previously 

 prepared. There they may stand six or seven years, when 

 half the trees may be taken away, and the rest cut down for 

 stools. Every ninth or tenth year will afford a fall for poles. 

 These trees will thrive exceedingly on the sides of brooks, 

 and may be cut for poles every sixth year. The banks of 

 rivers may be secured by placing truncheons very close, and 

 cross-wise. Their leaves being large, and of a deep green, 

 they will add much to the beauty of aquatic plantations. 



7. Betula Incana ; Hoary Alder. Peduncles branched ; 

 leaves roundish, elliptic, acute, pubescent underneath ; axils 

 of the veins naked ; stipules lanceolate. This species is to- 

 tally distinct from the common Alder ; it never attains the 

 size of that, and is commonly shrubby; the trunk is scarcely 

 thicker than a man's arm, the wood white, and of a close 

 texture. It grows naturally in dry sandy soils, and may 

 perhaps be cultivated with the Birch, where land is of little 

 value, as an under-wood, and may be propagated either by 

 layers or cuttings, as well as by seeds, where they can be 

 obtained. Native of the alpine and subalpine parts of Swit- 

 zerland, of Dauphiny, of eastern Siberia, and of the islands 

 beyond Kamtschatka.' 



8. Betula Populifolia ; Poplar-leaved Birch. Leaves 

 deltoid, drawn out to a long point, unequally serrate, very 

 smooth ; the scales of the strobiles having roundish side- 

 lobes ; petioles smooth. Native of North America. 



9. Betula Papyracea ; Paper Birch. Leaves ovate, acumi- 

 nate, doubly serrate ; veins hirsute underneath. Native of 

 North America, 



10. Betula Excelsa; Tall Birch. Leaves ovate, acute, 

 serrate ; scales of the strobiles having the side-lobes rounded ; 

 petioles pubescent, shorter than the peduncle. Native of 

 North America. 



11. Betula Oblongata ; Turkey Alder. Peduncles branch- 

 ed ; leaves oval, somewhat obtuse, glutinous ; the axils of 

 the veins marked underneath. This is very common in 

 Austria and Hungary. 



12. Betula Serrulata ; ffotched-leaeed Alder. Peduncle* 



