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LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
The wood of our Black birch is by far the finest ; and, as 
it assumes a beautiful rosy colour when polished, and is next 
in texture to the wild Cherry tree, it is considerably esteemd 
among cabinet-makers in the eastern states, for chairs, tables 
and bedsteads. 
In Europe, the sap of the birch is collected in the spring, in 
the same manner as that of the maple in this country, boiled 
with sugar and hops, and fermented with the aid of yeast. 
The product of the fermentation is called birch wine , and is 
described as being a remarkably pleasant and healthy beve- 
rage. 
Though perhaps too common in some districts of our coun- 
try to be properly regarded as an ornamental tree, yet in 
others, where it is less so, the birch will doubtless be esteemed 
as it deserves. With us it is a great favourite ; and we 
regard it as a very elegant and graceful tree, not less on 
account of the silvery white bark of several species, than 
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from the extreme delicacy of the spray, and the pleasing 
lightness and airiness of the foliage. In all the species, the 
branches have a tendency to form those graceful curves, 
which contribute so much to the beauty of trees ; but the 
European Weeping birch is peculiarly pleasing as it grows 
ones, on opposite sides of the tree : after which, by introducing a wedge, the 
bark is easily detached. These plates are usually ten or twelve feet long, and 
two feet nine inches broad. To form canoes, they are stitched together with 
fibrous roots of the white spruce, about the size of a quill, which are deprived 
of the bark, split, and suppled in water. The seams are coated with resin of the 
Balm of Gilead. Great use is made of these canoes by the savages, and the 
French Canadian in their long journies through the interior of the country : they 
are light, and are very easily transported on the shoulders from one lake to 
another, which is called the portage. A canoe calculated for four persons, with 
their baggage, weighs from forty to fifty pounds ; and some of them are made 
to carry fifteen passengers. 
