i82 THE TREE BOOK 



With a wooden wedge he raised it, 

 Stripped it from the trunk unbroken." 



And presently went floating swiftly and si- 

 lently down the river in his birch-bark canoe, 

 "lightly as a leaf in autumn," guided by a pad- 

 dle made from the wood of the tree. 



The chalky white bark of the canoe birch is 

 noticeable at considerable distance. It is 

 smooth, tough, and disagreeable to the touch, 

 and continually being shed in tattered patches 

 which show layers of orange yellow under the 

 white exterior. A small strip of birch bark 

 furnishes a surprising number of thin sheets of 

 "note paper." Thoughtless people often gir- 

 dle the birch to get these sheets for souvenir pa- 

 per, thus destroying in a few moments what has 

 taken Nature twenty or thirty years to make, — 

 for you know the girdling process usually means 

 sure death to the tree. 



The black birch may be seen in almost every 

 woodland from Nova Scotia to Florida and 

 westward to Minnesota and Kansas. It looks 

 much like the cherry tree and is often called the 

 cherry birch. The wood is dark colored and 

 takes a high polish. It closely resembles ma- 

 hogany and is much used in the making of fur- 

 niture. Every country lad in its locality knows 



