In north Russia it is the usual fuel for railway engines, and all over Scandinavia is the principal firewood, but though our climate does not produce the tree as well as that of more northern regions, where the bark is almost the only material used for covering the roofs of common buildings; yet, having regard to the great beauty of the tree in landscape, it should be much more generally grown than it is. All this was well brought out by Loudon many years ago in his great work, and yet the birch remains a neglected tree. But it has another virtue which must appeal to many in these days. It is of all trees the one most distasteful to rabbits, and on my property is the only tree which grows up from self-sown seed, on land which on account of its poverty has been treated as a rabbit warren.
As a nurse for other trees on poor land, whether of a dry and rocky nature, or wet and peaty, the birch seems to me to have a greater value than most writers on forestry have admitted. For wherever the soil is naturally covered by self-sown birch, or a fairly thick crop can be obtained by sowing, the land will be made fit for the planting of more valuable trees, such as larch or Corsican pine, at a lower cost ; and after providing shelter for smaller plants than could otherwise be used, it can, when the permanent crop has been established, be cut and sold at an age when spruce or Scots pine of the same age would be worthless.
A very successful instance of its use in this way has been described’ by G.U. Macdonald, forester at Raith, Fifeshire, the object here having been to plant moorland with spruce, in a locality where the late and early frosts were so severe that the spruce would hardly grow at first without some protection.’
On very dry oolite soil, birch is the only tree which reproduces itself naturally among long coarse grass, which it will, if thick enough, eventually suppress; and, though a large quantity of small birch wood may not be always saleable at as good a price as at Raith (20s. per ton for crate-wood), yet it is such excellent firewood, even when quite small, that having regard to the low cost of its seed, I can suggest no means whereby the desired result could be obtained so cheaply.
If desired to establish a birch covert by sowing, I would advise the careful selection of seed from trees naturally growing on land of similar character, because though foresters in this country have not yet realised the preference shown by the rough twigged birch for dry rocky land, it is universally accepted as a fact in Germany, whilst for wet or boggy land the downy twigged birch is preferable.
To raise birch from seed is not always easy; and whether it is better to sow in autumn directly the seed is ripe, or in spring, is a question which, after trying both plans, I have not yet decided to my own satisfaction. But, as a rule, I would follow nature and sow in autumn, not attempting to cover the seed with earth, but covering with some fir boughs, fern, or leaves, until it began to germinate. So far
1 Trans. Roy. Scot. Arb. Soc. xix. 287 (1906).
2 It has been used with great success as a nurse for beech in some of the plantations, which were made by the Danish forester, Ulrich, near Copenhagen, and which were shown to the Royal English Arboricultural Society, in August 1908. The object here was to protect young beech trees from spring frosts, and afford shade during their youth. Birches were planted in lines about 8 feet apart, and the beech planted between the rows of birch eight or ten years later. When the beech are sufficiently tall, the birch are thinned and finally cut out entirely and used as firewood. This system seemed to me to be one well worthy of adoption in England for other trees which require shade in youth.
