422 
BIRCH. 
being flat and furnished with styles and thin 
Wings. One of the species is an evergreen un- 
dershrub ; five are deciduous shrubs, of from 4 
to 6 feet in height; and all the others are deci- 
duous trees of from 10 to 70 feet in height. 
The common white birch, Betula alda, is a na- 
tive of the moist woods of Great Britain; it is 
found in the highest latitude or limits of the 
growth of trees; it occurs in the south of Hu- 
rope, only at a considerable elevation upon lofty 
mountains; and it extends eastward in Asia to 
the Altai mountains. Its stem attains a very 
various height, according to soil and climate, 
from that of a stunted shrub of only a few feet, 
to that of a fine tree of about 70 feet ; its branches 
are erect, warted, downy when young, and never 
afterwards smooth; its leaves are ovate, serrated, 
and somewhat rhomboidal, and stand upon downy, 
acute footstalks; and its catkins are pendulous, 
and appear in April, May, and June. But it is 
so universally known in Britain, both as a singly 
growing tree, as a frequent member of woods, 
and as the sole constituent of many upland cop- 
pices, that it does not need to be minutely de- 
scribed. Though usually of humble stature, it 
sometimes, in favourable situations, attains a 
stately height ; and though disesteemed as a 
living tree, and often put to degrading uses as 
timber, it is capable of being rendered emi- 
nently ornamental and not a little useful. Its 
form is spruce, light, and elegant; its spray is 
even more elegant in winter than its foliage in 
summer; and its stem, except in old age, has 
picturesque touches of brown, yellow, and silvery 
white, which contrast agreeably with the foliage, 
and are good subjects for the pencil’s imitation. 
It flourishes on soils which are nearly barren to 
any other large economical vegetation ; and it 
grows at a higher elevation on the mountains of 
the Scottish Highlands, than any other tree ex- 
cept the mountain ash. In ravines inaccessible 
to cattle, it flourishes at the height of upwards 
of 1,500 feet above sea-level; and so far from 
becoming deteriorated, it actually increases in 
value, with the altitude of its situation. 
The birch does not make a compensating re- 
turn on land fit for the more profitable timber 
trees; yet is productive on very wet or springy 
land, and highly remunerating on poor elevated 
soils; andit has been known to afford, in ten years, 
a return of ten pounds per acre on land so sterile 
as to be capable of producing nothing else but 
moss. It throws off a delightful odour, especially 
after rain or heavy dew; and a few trees of it 
planted near a house fill all the surrounding air 
with an agreeable fragrance. The gum which 
occasions this fragrance covers the buds in win- 
ter and spring, and abounds in the bark; it is 
glutinous, inflammable, and highly odoriferous; 
and it is extracted by the Germans and the Rus- 
sians in the form of an oil, and might probably 
be used with great advantage, as a substitue for 
butter and tar, in the smearing of sheep. “ The 
oil,” says Pallas in his Flora Russica, “is pre- 
pared from the white bark, either taken from 
the live tree, or collected from those that are 
putrid in the woods. It is best made from the 
latter, because, from the putrefaction, it is freed 
from the inner bark ; and the external white 
bark remains uncorrupted for ages, as appears 
by the old burial-places at Jamaica, and the 
vaults of the very ancient castle of Moscow, 
which I observed were covered with birch bark. 
The bark is gathered into a heap, and pressed 
into pits made in the shape of a funnel, prepared 
in clay-soil; and when set on fire, it is covered 
with turf. The oil, distilling through the clay 
hole at the bottom of the funnel, drops into a 
vessel placed to receive it; and it is then tunned 
into casks made of the hollowed trunks of trees. 
The pure limpid oil swims at top, and is in the 
greatest request for anointing leather, on ac- 
count of its antiseptic quality. The residuum is 
thick and sooty, and is employed for various 
common purposes.’ The Russians employ the 
oil in tanning and perfuming their leather; and 
the ancient Gauls appear, from a passage in Pliny, 
to have obtained and applied the oil in the same 
manner as the modern Russians. The oil is also 
a powerful vermifuge; and is used, in Lithuania 
and Courland, for curing itch and destroying | 
vermin in cattle, 
The bark of the birch contains a considerable 
proportion of tannin, and is sometimes peeled for 
the uses of the tanner; yet in the coppices of 
Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, and 
some other districts in which it abounds, it is not 
reckoned worth the labour of peeling. The Lap- 
landers sufficiently tan the skins of rein-deer to 
render them almost impermeable by water, by 
cutting birch bark into small pieces, macerating 
these, boiling them in water with a little salt, 
repeatedly plunging the skins in the warm de- 
coction, and then steeping them during several 
days in the decoction cooled. A very pleasing 
and refreshing beverage, called birch wine, is 
made from the sap of the birch; and the sap, for 
this purpose, is obtained in the same manner as 
that of the American maple for the manufacture 
of sugar.—The timber of the birch, when the 
tree attains considerable size, is used for gates, 
hurdles, articles of turnery, sleepers for railways, 
props for coal-pits, and various other purposes. 
But by far the greater portion of birch trees in 
England never rise above a dwarfish height, and 
are used principally for fuel, for the manufacture 
of esteemed charcoal, and for producing soot as 
an ingredient in printers’ ink. In the bleaker 
districts of the Scottish Highlands, the timber of 
many of the houses is birch, the rude implements 
of husbandry are made of birch, the favourite 
fuelis birch, and the only skreen of the arable 
plots or shelter from the piercing blasts which 
sweep the mountains and the glens is birch ; so 
that this tree may almost be pronounced a con- 
dition, if not of existence, at least of civilization 
—————— ———— 
a nn Fo = = =. 
