840 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Yellow poplar is exported to nearly all civilized coun- 

 tries. I'ractically the world's whole supply comes from the 

 United States, and regular shipments go to Great Britain. 

 France, Germany. Sweden, South America, South Africa, 

 West Indies, Me.xico, and Central America. Export logs 

 are usually S to !(> feet long, but ]>lanks form 

 the bulk of foreign shipments. If thin pieces g'<, 

 thev are cleated or bound in bundles to lessen 

 risk of damage. A'ery thin and very wide 

 pieces find foreign sale at highest prices. 



Yellow poplar is well adapted to preservative 

 treatment, but it has not been extensively used 

 in that way because cheaper woods take its place. 



THE BY-PRODUCTS 



Yellow^ poplar is not much employed in distilla- 

 tion, and its by-products along that line do not 

 figure largely in connnerce. The bark contains a 

 bitter principle, known as liriodendron, which 

 has been used as a medicine for malaria since 

 the days of the Indian doctors. It is not re- 

 garded as the equal of quinine. In the mountain 

 regions where yellow poplar grows, the pcojile 

 make medicine by pounding the bark, mixing 

 it with dogwood bark, and soaking the mixture in water 

 eight days. Some claim that wdiisky is a more efficacious 

 solvent, and the mountaineers prefer it. The mixture 



is o-iven as a remedy for rheumatism as well as for inter- 

 mittent fevers. 



Yellow poplar enters into the manufacture of pulp 

 and is used in paper-making, pressed pulp ware, papier 

 mache, and artificial silk. 



FOR AUTOMOBILE LIMOUSINES 



Tliis shows the metal covering of yellow poplar, which is much in demand for 

 this kind of work and is also used extensively for wagon bodies. 



[American Forestry is indebted to the United States Forest 

 Service, Office of Industrial Investigations, for much of the in- 

 formation contained in thi^ article on commercial uses of yel- 

 low poplar.] 



Characteristics and Seeding of the Tuhp Tree 



I'.v S. B. Elliott 



\\\A\' back in the dim past, millions of years ago 

 / \ it must have been, tor it was in what is geologi- 

 ■^ "-call}- known as the Cretaceous and Tertiary ages, 

 there grew several species of trees which were closely 

 allied, if not the actual progenitors, to tw<:i species now 

 to be found growing on our jjlanet. The remains of these 

 ancient trees can be seen in some of the rocks of the 

 periods named, and they make clear to us what l-'lpencir 

 enjoined Ulysses to provide for him; that is, a record 

 that they "had lived." Botanists have given i:)ur modern 

 species the name of Liriodendron, a term composed of 

 two Greek words meaning tulip tree in our vernacular, 

 and have likewise added the Latin affix tulipifera — 

 wdiich has the same meaning as the Gre;k name — render- 

 ing its full technical name Liriodendron tiilif'ifcra. Due 

 of these modern species is indigenous to China and the 

 other to that part of the United States bounded by a line 

 drawn from central .\'ew York to Michigan on the north, 

 and the Gulf of Mexic(j on the south, and from some two 

 cr three hundred miles w-est of the Mississi])i)i Ri\er on 

 the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east. 



While it was found, here and there, over a large jjart 

 of the territory indicated as its natural range it was 

 rarely, or never beyond a few- acres in extent, found in 

 r pure stand. It grew along with oaks, chestnut, hick- 

 ories, cherry, ash, maple, and other broad-leaf trees, but 



seldom with hemlock and pine as near neighbors. It 

 was ti) be seen in its greatest abundance and in its best 

 de\elopment along the valleys of the (_)hio River and its 

 tributaries, and on the slopes of those valleys and on 

 the slopes and crests of the Appalachian Mountains. 



Of all the broad-leaf trees of the United States none 

 attains its grandeur and magnificence of form or vies with 

 it in length, uniformity, or symmetry of stem ; and only 

 the sycamore can compete successfully with it in diame- 

 ter, while that tree utterly fails to equal it in all other 

 attributes of greatness or economic value. It was not un- 

 usual, and it may be so still, to find trees 6 to 8 and even 

 111 feet in diameter, with a stem clean of limbs for 80 

 to IHi feet and a crown of foliage reaching at the apex 

 l.Vi iir even vIik) feet from the ground. 



lixcejjt in its infancy it is emphaticalK' light-dem;ind- 

 ing. or. as the foresters say, an "intolerant" tree. When 

 grown in the open it will then throw out liml>s close to 

 the ground and assume a rounded sort of a crown with 

 many siiecialized limbs reaching out from the center a 

 distance equal to fully one-half the height of the tree; 

 but if grown in a dense stand, or in a stand approxi- 

 mating such a condition, with competitors for light at 

 all equal to it in rapidity of growth, it will shoot up a 

 sliarp-piiinted conical crown, drup all its lower limbs for 



