496 



NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 



Note XXIV. Page 366. 



I mean, however, as single trees, or in groups formed of themselves 

 only ; for there is scarcely another tree that will harmonise with them. 

 To such a style of scattering the Larch there is one objection, which 

 cannot easily be surmounted ; and that is, that the Larch, like the 

 Beech, does not well resist the winds, and, in open exposures, bends its 

 head from them in a most unsightly manner. The only remedy is to 

 have it straighted by means of a rope, twice a-year after being remov- 

 ed ; and by persisting in this practice, for three or four years, you will 

 prevent your trees from leaning from the weather side ; but you will 

 give them in some sort the form of a bow, so that a perpendicular let 

 fall from the top to the bottom, will touch both points. Probably of 

 two evils this is choosing the lesser. 



Note XXV. Page 3C7. 



Sir James E. Smith thus describes the Birch, which is in the class 

 Moncecia tetrandria of Linnaeus — Betula alba, foUis ovatis, acutis, 

 serratis, glahriusculis. — Flor. Britan. t. iii. p. 1012. Of the white 

 or common Birch, the weeping sort, or that which is most pendulous, is 

 generally supposed to be a variety. On an accurate inspection, perhaps 

 all Birches, at a full age, may be found more or less to merit the epithet. 



Besides the white, I believe there is another indigenous species, 

 namely, the Dwarf Birch {Betula nana^ — a well-known plant, also in 

 Sweden and Lapland, and which Lightfoot has clearly ascertained to 

 belong to Scotland. But it is merely a shrub, or a sort of underwood, 

 never rising above three or four feet high. The seed of it furnishes food 

 for the ptarmigan or white partridge, {Tetrao lagopus,) so well known as 

 an important article of subsistence to the natives of the polar districts. 



The 1st American kind mentioned in the text, is the mahogany 

 Birch, {Betula lenta,) and is celebrated by Michaux and Dr Yule as a 

 valuable tree, and growing more freely in the swamps of Sweden and 

 Norway, as well as in Canada, than in the more genial climate of 

 Britain. It rises to the height of seventy feet and upwards in America, 

 and produces a most valuable and beautiful wood, for the purposes of 

 the joiner. Its leaves are said to afford an agreeable and well-flavoured 

 diluent, superior to the generality of tea. 



2. The yellow Birch {Betula luted) grows to a great height in the 

 northern states, and in Nova Scotia ; but its timber is represented as 

 inferior to that of the mahogany species. 



3. The black Birch {Betula nigra) is also a stately tree, and a 



