chap, civ. //etulaYe/E. ae'tula. 1695 



to the height of 3500 ft. on some of the Highland mountains. According to 

 Dr. Walker, the birch grows higher on the Highland mountains than any 

 other tree except the mountain ash : but in this he must have been mis- 

 taken ; because the extreme height at which the mountain ash is found in 

 Forfarshire is, according to Watson, 2500 ft. ; and the birch is found, in various 

 places, 1000 ft. higher up the mountains. Some of the finest specimens of 

 the weeping birch grow on the banks of rocky streams in North Wales. In 

 England, the birch is supposed to have been once so plentiful in Berkshire as 

 to have given the name to that county ; though some suppose the name Berk- 

 shire to be a corruption of Bare-oak, or Berroc, shire. 



History. The common birch was known to the Greeks (seep. 18.) and to 

 the Romans. According to Pliny and Plutarch, the celebrated books which 

 Numa Pompilius composed 700 years before Christ, and which were buried 

 with him on Mount Janiculum, were written on the bark of the birch tree. 

 In the early days of Home, the lictors had their fasces made of birch branches, 

 which they carried before the magistrates to clear the way, beating the people 

 back with the boughs. Pliny says that the birch was brought to Italy from 

 Gaul ; though, considering that it is a native of the Apennines, it is surprising 

 that it should not have been known to the Romans as an indigenous tree. 

 The birch was formerly used in England for ornamenting the houses during 

 Rogation Week, in the same manner as holly is at Christmas. Gerard says 

 the branches of the birch " serve well to the decking up of houses and ban- 

 quetting roomes for places of pleasure, and beautifying the streetes in the Crosse, 

 or Gang, Week, and such like." The Cross, or Gang, Week, Phillips tells us, was 

 the same as Rogation Week ; which was called Gang Week from the crowds, or 

 gangs, of penitents going in that week to confession, before Whitsuntide. It 

 was called Cross Week, from the crosses carried before the priests in the pro- 

 cession on Ascension Day ; and Rogation Week, from the Latin verb rogo, to 

 ask or pray. (Syl. Flor., i. p. 133.) Coles, writing in 1657, observes that, at 

 this season, as he " rid through little Brickhill, in Buckinghamshire, every 

 sign poste in the towne was bedecked with green birch." We have observed 

 the same custom in Poland, at the same season ; where, also, large boughs are 

 fixed in the ground, against each side of the doors of the houses. The birch 

 has been used as an instrument of correction at schools from the earliest ages 

 Anciently, says Evelyn, " birch cudgels were used by the lictors, as now the 

 gentler rods by our tyrannical pedagogues, for lighter faults." The sight of a 

 birch tree, observes the writer of the article Birch in the Nouveau Du Hamel, 

 " offers a vast subject of interesting meditation : but happy the man to whom 

 its flexible pendent branches do not recall to mind that they were formerly 

 instruments of punishment to him !" Gerard observes that, in his time, 

 " schoolmasters and parents do terrify their children with rods made of birch." 

 The use of these rods, however, both in schools and private families, is now 

 fast passing away, together with many other barbarous practices of our an- 

 cestors. At present, the tree is planted in Britain in poor soils, and in exposed 

 situations, for sheltering others ; in copses, for producing brooms, and for many 

 other valuable purposes; and, in favourable soils and situations, as being or- 

 namental. On the Continent, and more especially in France and Germany, it 

 is extensively planted as a fuel tree, on the poorest soils ; and, in good soils, 

 as a nurse for hard-wooded and resinous trees. In the north of Russia, and 

 in Sweden and Norway, the natural woods of birch form the principal supplies 

 of fuel for large towns ; and, in many places, also the principal timber for 

 buildings, furniture, and rural implements. 



Properties and Uses. Naturally, the birch forms the food of various insects, 

 when in leaf; and the buds and catkins, in the winter season, are eaten by nu- 

 merous birds. The siskin, or aberdevine (i^ringilla^pinus L.), feeds upon the 

 seeds, which are its favourite food. The tree, when old, forms the habitat of va- 

 rious lichens, mosses, and fungi ; particularly Dasdalea ietulina, and the fungus 

 (Polyporus fomentarius) that produces the moxa. The leaves and young shoots 

 are also occasionally eaten by cattle, sheep, and swine, though they are not fond 



5 s 



