l
purposes--all come from one red-leaved beech, a sort of freak of nature,
which was found about a century ago in a wood in Germany.

The Birch (_Betula alba_, &c.) is also a tree of very distinctive
appearance. The silver-white bark, which peels so delightfully under
childish fingers, is not less charming to the sketcher's eye, whether as
a near study or as gleaming points of high light against the grey
greens and misty purples of a Highland hillside. It is emphatically the
tree of the Highlands of the North. It bends and breaks not under the
wildest winds, it thrives on poor soil, and defies mist and cold. So
varied are its uses that it has been said that the Scotch Highlander
makes everything of birch, from houses to candles, and beds to ropes!
The North American Indians and the Laplanders apply it almost as
universally as the Chinese use paper. The wigwams or huts of the North
American Indians are made of birch-bark laid over a framework of
birch-poles or trunks, and their canoes or boats are cased in it. The
Laplander makes his great-coat of it,--a circular _poncho_ with a hole
for his head,--as well as his houses and his boots and shoes. It will be
easily believed that birch-bark was used in ancient times for writing on
before the invention of paper.

Birch-wood makes good fuel. It is also used by cabinet-makers. Its uses
in "little woods" are many. The charcoal is good for gunpowder, and it
is that of which _crayons_ are made. Birch-coppices are cut for brooms,
hoops, &c., at five to six years old, and at ten to twelve for
faggot-wood, poles, fencing, and bark for the tanners. Birch-spray (that
is, the twigs and leaves) is used for smoking hams and herrings, and for
brooms to sweep grass. It is also used to make birch-rods; but as we
think very ill of the discipline of any household in which the children
and the pets cannot be kept in order without being beaten, we hope our
own young readers are only familiar with birch-rods in picture-books.

The (Sweet or Spanish) Chestnut (_Castanca vesca_) is grown in "little
woods" for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops. The wood of the full-grown
tree is also valuable.

Evelyn says, "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a
golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries." It would be
entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous
fluids" advertised by hair-dressers!

Amongst "little woods" the dearest of all to the school-boy must su