Stránka:book 1922.djvu/409

Forestry 379 The woodman's fire in Two Little Savages was made thus: "First a curl of birch bark as dry as it can be, Next some sticks of soft wood dead but on the tree; Last of all, some pine knots to make the kittle foam, An' thar's a fire to make ye think yer sittin' right at home." This is the noblest of the Birches, the white queen of the woods — the source of food, drink, transport and lodging to those who dwell in the forest; the most bountiful provider of all the trees. Its sap yields a delicious syrup which has in it a healing balm for the lungs. Its innermost bark is dried in famine time and powdered to a flour that has some nourishing power. Its wood furnishes the rims for snowshoes, the frills and fuzzes of its outer bark are the best of fire kindlers, and the timber of the trunk has the rare property of burning whether green or dry. Its catkins and buds form a favorite food of the partridge which is the choicest of game. But the outer bark-skin, the famous birch bark, is its finest con- tribution to man's needs. The broad sheets of this vegetable rawhide ripped off when the weather is warm and especially when the sap is moving — are tough, light, strong, pliant, absolutely waterproof, almost imperishable in the weather ; free from insects, assailable only by fire. It roofs the settler's shack and the forest Indian wigwam, it is the "tin" of the woods and supplies pails, pots, pans, cups, spoons, boxes — 'Under its protecting power the matches are safe and dry, and split very thin, as is easily done, it is the writing paper of the woods, flat, light, smooth, waterproof, tinted and scented; no daughter of the King has ever a more exquisite sheet to sanctify the thoughts committed to its care. But the crowning glory of the Birch is this — it furnishes the in- dispensable substance for the bark canoe, whose making is the highest industrial exploit of the Indian life. It would be hard to imagine anything more beautifully made, of and for the life of the Northern woods, buildable, reparable, and usable from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in all the vast region of temperate America — the canoe whose father was the Red mind and whose mother was the birch, is one of the priceless gifts of America to the world. We may use man-made fabrics for the skin, we may substitute unlovely foreign substance for the ribs, or dangerous copper nails for the binding of spruce roots — but the original shape, the lines, the structural ribs, the lipper-turning prow, the roller-riding stern and the forward propulsion of the ever personal paddle, the buoyancy, the wonderful lightness for overland transport, the reparableness by woodland stuffs — these are the things