48 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



A wine is made from the sap of the Birch-tree, from 

 which a spirit is extracted. The notable English house- 

 wife was formerly skilled in making Birch wine : 



" And though she boasts no charms divine, 

 Yet she can carve, and make Birch wine." 



T. WARTON. 



" even afflictive Birch, 



Cursed by unlettered idle youth, distils 

 A limpid current from her wounded bark, 

 Profuse of nursing sap." 



Thus it appears that the Birch-tree supplies to the 

 northern peasant his house ; his bread, his wine, and the 

 vessels to put them in; and some part of his clothing; 

 the seeds too are the food of the ptarmigan, upon which, 

 in a great measure, he subsists; and the leaves some- 

 times furnish his bed. From the Birch, also, is prepared 

 the Moxa, which he considers an efficacious remedy in 

 all painful diseases. 



" Even its leaves," says Mr. Drummond, " are not 

 unimportant, being employed by the Finland women in 

 forming a soft elastic couch for the cradle of infancy. 

 Acerbi has given a specimen of a wild lullaby song in 

 which this is alluded to, and which seems to have been 

 copied in these lines of Leyden : 



" Sweet bird of the meadow, soft be thy rest ! 

 Thy mother will wake thee at morn from thy nest ; 

 She has made a soft nest, little red-breast, for thee, 

 Of the leaves of the Birch, and the moss of the tree*." 



Birch-wood is thought to make the best charcoal, and 

 its soot is a good lamp-black for printers' ink. The 

 leaves are good fodder for horses, kine, sheep, and goats ; 



* Drummond's First Steps to Botany, p. 328. 



