Читать книгу A Book of Britain: The Lore, Landscape and Heritage of a Treasured Countryside - Johnny Scott - Страница 39

Our native birches, the silver birch and downy birch, are two of Britain’s most lovely and graceful trees. No highland scene would be complete without these dainty masterpieces of nature growing in broken thickets on rugged hillsides and wild glens, beside thundering waterfalls and raging torrents, mountain tarns and on wind-swept moors.

These silver trees, which thrive on the light, drier soils of the eastern side of the country and the downy birches of the damp western uplands, are beautiful in all seasons. In winter, the twigs of a birch give the impression of a purple mist hanging over the hillside which turns to a glorious haze of yellow and red when the catkins appear in the springtime. The bright freshness of its leaves and their delicate scent are not matched by any other tree, and in summer after rain, when every leaf holds an iridescent crystal at its tip, a birch really becomes the ‘Lady of the Wood’, the name given by the Celts. In autumn the fallen leaves give brightness and a wonderful variety of different colours to the woodland scene and alleviate any feeling of melancholy that trees in the autumn can sometimes provoke.

Hard, heavy, close-grained birch wood made superb charcoal and is among the best of firewoods, burning with a bright, steady flame and a pleasant fragrance. Hams, herrings and haddock smoked over birch twigs or ‘sprays’ acquire a unique flavour from the resinous wood, as did whisky when barrels were made of it. Because of its prevalence and availability in the Highlands, the uses of birch there were many and varied. It was used for all building materials, the handles of agricultural implements and for household items such as bowls, plates and spoons. Cradles were made of birch and there was a thriving cottage industry making hard-wearing bobbins, spools and reels for the Lancashire cotton industry.

The oily bark, which makes the best kindling, was used for tanning leather, and sometimes, when dried, twisted into a rope and soaked in mutton tallow to be used as a substitute for candles. Twigs or sprays were used in thatching, and birch spray, dried through the summer with the leaves on, made an acceptable alternative to heather in a mattress. Besom brooms are still made of birch sprays and the wood is suitable for veneer; birch ply is the strongest and most dimensionally stable plywood used to make skateboards, amongst other things. Birch has a natural resonance that peaks in the high and low frequencies and is the most sought-after wood in the manufacture of speaker cabinets. It is sometimes used as a tone wood for semi-acoustic and acoustic guitars and occasionally for solid-body guitars.