Betula 969 



Rhodope mountains in Bulgaria, through Servia, Bosnia, and Istria to the Venetian 

 Alps ; and following the southern limit of the Alps in northern Italy, it extends 

 from the maritime Alps along the Apennines to Aspromonte in Calabria, crossing 

 over to Sicily, where it reaches its extreme southerly point on Mount Etna in 

 J^t- 37" 40'- It does not occur in Corsica or Sardinia. It is common in the forests 

 of the plains and lower mountains of France in the north, east, and west; but 

 towards the south only grows at high elevations, as in the mountains of Auvergne 

 and in the Pyrenees. It grows in Portugal in the Sierra de Gerez ; and in Spain 

 throughout the northern mountains, in Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre ; and also in the 

 Sierra Guadarrama, the mountains of Toledo, and the Sierra de Gata, 



The largest forests of the species occur on the plains of the Baltic and central 

 provinces of Russia, where it grows either pure or in mixture with aspen and grey 

 alder, or with the common pine and spruce. Von Sivers ^ points out that the two 

 species of birch occur in the Baltic provinces in different soils and situations. 

 B. verrucosa grows on the glacial drifts, where it reaches large dimensions, and 

 often forms pure forests of clean, straight stems, which on the better class of soil, 

 amongst spruce, often reach 100 to 130 feet in height. 



There are also extensive pure woods in the plains of northern and central 

 Germany ; but farther south the tree is more at home in the mountains, as in the 

 Alps and Carpathians, and only forms small woods, or grows scattered or in groups 

 amidst other trees. 



This species is most common in continental Europe on dry soils, thriving 

 best in localities where the common pine does well, as in loamy sands with a 

 moderately moist subsoil ; but dwindles and ceases to grow on marshy ground 

 or on undrained peat-mosses. It requires more light than the other species, and 

 in woods of B. verrucosa the soil is usually covered with grass ; the leaf mould 

 and moss, so common on the ground in woods of B. pubescens, being usually absent. 



(A. H.) 



Cultivation of the Common and Silver Birch 



After the oak, there is perhaps no tree which has been so generally attractive 

 to artists and lovers of the picturesque as the birch, which will grow almost any- 

 where, and is often looked on by English foresters and woodmen as a weed. This 

 it may be on land fit to grow fine timber ; where, however, it is not often so 

 prevalent as on poor dry soils, or on wet, boggy land ; but when the question of 

 covering waste land with timber of some sort at a low cost has to be considered, 

 there is no tree that will do it so cheaply and so surely as the birch. 



It seeds very profusely, and the seed is so light that it spreads with great 

 rapidity, and germinates in places where hardly any other tree will live. It is 

 absolutely the hardiest tree we have, and though its economic value is low at 

 present, yet probably it will, when our coal gets scarce and dear, be looked on as 

 the cheapest and best of firewood. 



1 Forst. Verhdlt. Bait. Prov. i8 {1903). 

 IV 2 L 



