Although the birch is by no means considered a valuable timber tree, yet its wood is used for numerous purposes. Being of white colour, and firm and tough in texture, it is variously employed by hoop-benders and wheel-wrights. Turners use it for trenchers, bowls, ladles, and other wooden ware. Ox yokes, small screws, women's shoe-heels, pattens, and, in France, wooden shoes are made of it. The North American Indians use the wood of the birch-tree for canoes, boxes, buckets, baskets, kettles, and dishes, curiously joining it together with threads made of roots of the cedar-tree. Birch-trees are not unfrequently planted with hazels, for the purpose of the wood being converted into charcoal for forges. This charcoal is much esteemed; and the soot which is formed on burning the wood constitutes a good black substance for printers' ink.
Nearly all the other parts of the birch-tree are applicable to useful purposes. The inhabitants of Sweden employ the bark in the tanning of leather; and, after burning it to a certain degree, they also use it as a cement for broken china and earthen ware. The navigators of the river Volga construct of it portable boats, cradles, &c. It is serviceable in dyeing a yellow colour. In Norway it is dried, ground, mixed with meal, and boiled with other food for swine. Houses or huts, in many parts of the north of Europe, are covered with the outward and thicker part of the bark, instead of slates, or tiles. It is spun into a coarse kind of rope, woven into shoes and hats; and, in Kamschatka, even made into drinking cups. The Laplanders fasten together large pieces of it as outer garments to keep off the rain. Abounding with much resinous matter, slices of the bark are sometimes twisted together to make torches. During a scarcity of corn the bark of the birch-tree has, in several instances, been ground with bread corn, and successfully used as food by mankind.
In most parts of England the twigs of this tree are made into besoms. They are also made into the tops of fishing rods; and, when smeared with bird-lime ([56]), are used by bird-catchers. The Norwegians frequently employ them as fodder for their horses. The leaves afford a yellow dye.
A wholesome wine is made from the sap or juice of the birch-tree. The juice is obtained by boring holes in the trunks of the trees, about the beginning of March, before the leaves appear. Into each of these holes a piece of elder stick, hollowed through the middle, by clearing out the pith, is placed. This conducts the juice, as it flows from the wound, into a vessel put to receive it. If a tree be large, it may be tapped in four or five places at once; and, from several trees, many gallons of juice may be obtained in a day. The juice thus procured is to be boiled with sugar, in the proportion of four pounds to a gallon, and treated in the same manner as other made wines. A good spirit might no doubt be obtained from the juice of the birch-tree by distillation.
229. The ALDER, or OWLER (Betula alnus, Fig. 63), is a tree which grows in wet situations, and is distinguished by its flower-stalks being branched, and its leaves being roundish, waved, serrated, and downy at the branching of the veins beneath.
There are few means of better employing swampy and morassy grounds than by planting them with alders; for although the growth of these trees is not rapid, the uses to which they are applicable are such as amply to repay the loss of time requisite before they come to perfection.
The wood of the alder, which is in great demand for machinery, is frequently wrought into cogs for mill-wheels, and is peculiarly adapted for all kinds of work which are to be constantly kept in water. It is consequently used for pumps, sluices, pipes, drains, and conduits of different description, and for the foundation of buildings situated in swamps. The water pipes which are laid under the streets of many of our large towns are made of alder; and, for its utility in the formation of sluices, it is much cultivated in Holland. It is commonly used for bobbins; and women's shoe-heels, ploughmen's clogs, and numerous articles of turnery ware, are formed of it. This wood serves also for many domestic and rural uses, for spinning-wheels, troughs, the handles of tools, ladders, cart-wheels; and, as coppice wood, it is planted to be cut down every ninth or tenth year, for poles. The roots and knots furnish a beautifully veined wood, nearly of the colour of mahogany; and well adapted for cabinet work and furniture.
The bark may be advantageously used in the operations of tanning and leather-dressing; and by fishermen, for staining their nets. This, and the young twigs, are sometimes employed in dyeing, and yield different shades of yellow and red. The Laplanders chew the bark of the alder, and dye their leather garments red with the saliva thus produced. With the addition of copperas, it yields a black dye, which the dyers of cotton use to considerable extent; and, for this purpose, it is purchaseable in some countries, at the rate of seven pence or eight pence per stone.
In the highlands of Scotland, we are informed that young branches of the alder, cut down in the summer, spread over the fields, and left during the winter to decay, are found to answer the purpose of manure. The fresh gathered leaves, being covered with a glutinous moisture, are said to be sometimes strewed upon floors to destroy fleas, which become entangled in it, as birds are with bird-lime. But these agile and troublesome insects must be numerous indeed to render the setting of traps for them of any avail towards their destruction.
230. The COMMON NETTLE. There are two kinds of nettle common in England, one of which (Urtica dioica) has heart-shaped leaves, and the other (Urtica urens) has oval leaves.