228 



Bulletin 68. 



The lyombardy poplar was much prized in this country a hun- 

 dred years ago. John Kenrick estabHshed a commercial nursery 

 of ornamental trees in Newton, Massachussetts, in 1797, and two 

 acres were ' ' devoted to the cultivation of the Lombary poplar, 

 which was about the only ornamental tree for which there was 

 any demand in those days."* It is probable that very few, if 

 any, of the trees sold by Kenrick are still living, even in locali- 

 ties where the climate is not 

 severe ; and this is evidence 

 that the tree is short lived — a 

 fact which all careful observers 

 must have noticed. 



A hardy type of the Lom- 

 bardy is grown in the North- 

 west. Professor Budd gives 

 the following account of it.f 



"In the summer of 1882 

 Mr. Gibb and the writer were 

 surprised to find the Lombardy 

 poplar in perfect health in 

 central Russia, where our 

 American black locust, hon- 

 ey locust and other trees 

 killed down each winter as 

 does the common peach in 

 north Iowa. Our surprise came from the fact that Loudon in- 

 clined to the belief that Popuhis dilatata [one name for the I,om- 

 bardy Poplar] was native to the valley of the Po in lyombardy, 

 from whence it came to England and America. But Russian bot- 

 anists soon assured us that its home was in the east and that its 

 hardiness varied like other species, and hence depended on the 

 region from whence it was obtained. Under the name of Populus 

 dilatata we imported the hardy kind from Voronesh, in central 

 Russia. As this is 300 miles north of the sea of Azoflf, from 

 whence came the Russian Mennonites of Minnesota, I suspect 



*Garden and Forest, i. 302. 

 fRural Life, Aug. 31, 1893, p. 12. 



