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.