Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — THE WHITE BIRCH. [ARTICLE]

THE WHITE BIRCH.

A Splendid Tree That is Put t» Many Uses. “Why not call trees people ? since, if you come to live among them year after year, you will learn to know many of them personally, and an attachment will grow up between you and them individually.”’ So writes that “Doctor Amabilis” of woodcraft, W. C. Prime, in his book: “Among the Northern Hills,” and straightway launches forth into eulogy of the white birch. And truly it is an admirable, lovable and comfortable tree, beautiful to look upon and full of various uses. Its wood is strong to make paddles and axe handles, and glorious to burn, blazing up at first with a flashing flame, and then holding the fire in its glowing heart all through the night. Its bark: is the most serviceable of all the products of the wilderness. In Russia, they say, it is used in tanning, and gives its subtle, sacerdotal fragrance to Russia leather. But here in tho woods it serves more primitive ends. It can be peeled off in a huge roll from some giant tree and fashioned into a swift canoe to carry man over the waters. It can be cut into square sheets to roof his shanty in the forest. It is the paper on which he writes his woodland despatches, and the flexible material which ho bends into drinking cups of silver lined with gold. A thin strip of it wrapped around the end of a. candle and fastened in a. cleft stick makes a practicable chandelier. A basket for berries, a horn to call the lovelorn moose through the autumnal woods, a canvas on which to draw the outline of great and memorable sish —all those and many other indispensable luxuries are storecTup for the skilful woodsman in birch bark. Only do not rob or mar the tree unless you really need what it has tn give you. Let it stand and grow in virgin majesty, ungirdled and unscarred, while the trunk becomes a firm pillar of the forest temple, and the branches spread abroad a refuge of bright green leaves for the birds of the air. Nature never made a morn excellent piece of handiwork. “And if,” said my lady Greygown, “I should ever become a dryad, I would choose to be transformed into a. white birch. And jthen, when the days of my life were numbered, and the sap had ceased to flow, and the last leaf had fallen, and the dry bark hung around me in ragged curls and streamers, some wandering hunter would come in the wintry night and touch a lighted coal to my body, and my spirit would flash up in a fiery chariot into the sky.