DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
159 
The wood of our Black birch is by far the finest ; and, 
as it assumes a beautiful rosy color when polished, and ia 
next in texture to the wild Cherry tree, it is considerably 
esteemed 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 bir-ch wine, and is described as being a remarkably 
pleasant and healthy beverage. 
Though perhaps too common in some districts of our 
country 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 favorite ; 
and we regard it as a very elegant and graceful tree, not 
less on account of the silvery white bark of several 
species, than 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 
canoes. To procure proper pieces, the largest and smoothest trunks are 
selected ; in the spring, two circular incisions are made several feet apart, and 
two longitudinal ones, on opposite sides of the tree : after which, by intro- 
ducing 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 Canadians, in their long journeys through 
the interior of the country : they are light, and 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.” 
