y. "I have not red of any vertue it hath in physick,"
says Turner; "howbeit, it serveth for many good uses, and for none
better than for betynge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will not
learn." Yet the Birch is not without interest. The word "Birch" is the
same as "bark," meaning first the rind of a tree and then a barque or
boat (from which we also get our word "barge"), and so the very name
carries us to those early times when the Birch was considered one of
the most useful of trees, as it still is in most northern countries,
where it grows at a higher degree of latitude than any other tree. Its
bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and
roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it
still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is
well suited, from its lightness and ease in working.

In Northern Europe it is the most universal and the most useful of
trees. It is "the superlative tree in respect of the ground it covers,
and in the variety of purposes to which it is converted in Lapland,
where the natives sit in birchen huts on birchen chairs, wearing birchen
boots and breeches, with caps and capes of the same material, warming
themselves by fires of birchwood charcoal, reading books bound in birch,
and eating herrings from a birchen platter, pickled in a birchen cask.
Their baskets, boats, harness, and utensils are all of Birch; in short,
from cradle to coffin, the Birch forms the peculiar environment of the
Laplander."[36:1] In England we still admire its graceful beauty,
whether it grows in our woods or our gardens, and we welcome its
pleasant odour on our Russia leather bound books; but we have ceased to
make beer from its young shoots,[36:2] and we hold it in almost as low
repute (from the utilitarian point of view) as Turner and Shakespeare
seem to have held it.

FOOTNOTES:

[36:1] "Gardener's Chronicle."

[36:2] "Although beer is now seldom made from birchen twigs, yet it is
by no means an uncommon practice in some country districts to tap the
white trunks of Birches, and collect the sweet sap which exudes from
them for wine-making purposes. In some parts of Leicestershire this sap
is collected in large quantities every spring, and birch wine, when well
made, is a wholesome and by no means an unpleasant beverage."--B. in
_The Garden_, April, 1877. "The Finlanders substitute the leaves of
Birch for those of the tea-plant; the Swede