The Birch. 



Birches from ?ee(l, and I always failed. Miller bad 

 taught me, ihat I must cover the seed vei-y lightly ; but 

 thougb I did this witb earth passed through a sieve that 

 made it as fine as floui*, I got, on an average, not a plant 

 in a yard square, though I sowed in the shade, and watered, 

 and neglected no precaution tending to success. 



157. The Birch does not send out suckers; and, as it can- 

 not be propagated by cuttings, like the Alder, the young 

 plants, wherewith to make new plantations, are got from 

 the woods ; are pulled up there when young, and are put 

 into plantations at once, or are previously placed in a 

 nursery for a short time. In the birch-woods abundance 

 of seeds fall every year, and are of course never covered by 

 any earth at all. They must generally fall upon, or amongst, 

 leaves; but some few remain on the bare ground. Here, 

 in the shade of summer, they strike ; and they barely exist 

 in this shaded state, imtil the coppice he cut. Then they 

 have sun and air; and while the old stems are sending up 

 their new shoots, these seedlings get up too; and before 

 they be completely overtopped again, they become plants 

 a foot or two high. They, when they become shaded again, 

 make little progress in height, but increase something in 

 size of stem. When the wood is next cut, the hook sweeps 

 them down amongst the rest, and then they send up strong 

 shoots; they start with the old stems, and take their place 

 as underwood. 



158. The last summer (1827), having failed in all my 

 attempts to raise plants from American seed, I, reflecting 

 on this operation in the woods, determined to try some 

 seed on the top of the ground, and under shade. In order to 

 insure the shade and the moisture, and, at the same time, 

 to insure protection against heavy rains and gusts of wind, 



