BIRCH. 129 



bustible powder. The botanist, finding no- 

 thing but anthers in the catkins that so 

 securely protect the pollen until the female 

 flowers expose their stigmas in the spring, to 

 catch the impregnating dust which forms the 

 future forest, exclaims, with Thomson, 



" Was every faltering tongue of man, 

 Almighty Father ! silent in thy praise, 

 Thy works themselves would raise a general voice; 

 Even in the depth of solitary woods, 

 By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power." 



The physiological student, knowing how 

 abundantly this tree abounds in juices, says, 



" Mark, too, the sap, that, ere its process ends, 

 In course alternate, rises or descends; 

 In active virtue, how its liquid power 

 Creates the wood, the leaf, the fruit, and flower." 



The vernal sap of these trees is well known 

 to have a saccharine quality; and from it the 

 forest housewife makes an agreeable and 

 wholesome wine. Pomona's bard says, 



-" Even afflictive birch, 



Cursed by unletter'd idle youth, distils 

 A limpid current from her wounded bark, 

 Profuse of nursing sap." 



Loudon tells us, in the Encyclopaedia of 

 Gardening (page 189), that a birch-tree has 

 been known to yield, in the course of the 



vol. i. k 



