in March / April
choose a tree which has cca 20-30 cm diameter at 1m height
at 1m height, drill a cca 2cm-5cm hole with 0.5 cm diameter
insert a drinking straw or a glass tube
collect max 2-3 liters per tree
enclose the drill hole with earth/soil and ash (otherwise the tree could "bleed to death")
for a chosen tree, do not apply more often than once in 2 years
...shoes, containers, boats, mats, roofs, brooms, craddles for newborn, tar, oil, birch flour, torches, paper / postcards, fire in rainy times, chewing gums ...
Birch provides four good things: she illuminates (used for torches); she strangles cries (birch tar used for creeking wheels); she heals the sick and she purifies (birch canes in sauna).
Die Birke ist auch heut zu Tag in großer Ehr, dieweil sie die böse uns ungehorsame Kinder und Jugend straffet. Daher man dann in Teutschen Reimen sagen: O Du gute Bircken Ruth, Du machst die ungehorsamen Kinder gut ! (Lonicerus, 1679)
Beith is the Irish name of the first letter (Irish "letter": sing.fid, pl.feda) of the Ogham alphabet, meaning "birch". In Old Irish, the letter name was Beithe, which is related to Welsh bedw(en), Breton bezv(enn), and Latin betula. Its Proto-Indo-European root was *gʷet- 'resin, gum'. Its phonetic value is
Coded in vim (front-end: D3.js; back-end: kastalia.medienhaus) by Prof. Daniel D. Hromada (UdK / ECDF).