386 
Miller measured one which was near ten yards girth two feet above-the 
ground, and was then in a thriving state: and Sir T. Brown mentions one, 
which grew in Norfolk, that was sixteen yards in circuit and one foot and a 
half above ground, in height thirty yards, and in the least part of the trunk 
it was eight yards and a half. 
The wood is light, smooth, of a spongy texture, and does not easily 
bend. 
It will grow if planted upside down, when the branches will become 
roots, and the roots put forth leaves. 
The wood is used by carvers; and by architects for framing the models 
of their buildings; the turner makes light bowls, dishes, &c. it also serves for 
wainscotting rooms, but it is too soft for any strong purposes. 
Is best suited for producing charcoal for gunpowder, and for designers. 
The twigs are fit for making large baskets. 
In Norway the peasants form with the bark very elegant butter-baskets; 
likewise when macerated, lines for husbandry and for fishing; of the inner 
bark is made the bass-mats, so useful to gardeners. 
The sap inspissated affords a quantity of sugar. The flowers are reckoned 
among the best for bees to collect honey from; and an artificial wax has been 
• obtained from them by a chemical process. 
The Birch (Betula alba) is found extending from Lapland to the 
subalpine parts of Italy; also in Asia, chiefly in mountainous situations.—It 
may be known at first sight by the silvery colour of its bark, or rather Epi¬ 
dermis, the smallness of its leaves in comparison with other timber-trees, 
and the lightness and airiness of the whole appearance. Though Birch, says 
the excellent Evelyn, be of all other the worst of timber, yet has it various 
uses: as for the husbandman’s ox-yokes; also for hoops, small screws, panniers, 
brooms, wands, bavin-bands, and wyths for faggots; and claims a memory 
for arrows, bolts, shafts (our old English artillery); also for dishes, bowls, 
ladles, and other domestic utensils, in the good old days of more simplicity, 
yet of better and truer hospitality. In New England our northern Ameri¬ 
cans make canoes, boxes, buckets, kettles, dishes, which they sew and join 
very curiously with thread made of Cedar roots; and divers other domestical 
utensils, as baskets, bags, with this tree, whereof they have a blacker * kind; 
* B. nigra, n. 2. 
