124 REPORT ON THE MANAGEMENT AND VALUE OF POPLAR. 



cleaning, and enclosing with hurdles or flakes, which are easily 

 removed and erected at small cost. The writer has found it 

 necessary also to employ wire netting, that is, when hares and 

 rabbits abound. To save manual labour the ground may be 

 prepared by ploughing, grubbing, and harrowing, which is more 

 expeditious than spade culture. 



The writer has found it a great advantage to be able to trans- 

 plant the young trees from the nursery to the forest with earth 

 adhering to them. To accomplish this as fully as possible, it is 

 well to employ a box, 3 feet long by 2\ wide, and 2 feet deep, 

 which is fixed between two handles in the form of a hand- 

 barrow, well rounded at the edges to prevent friction and injury 

 to the bark of the trees placed in it to be carried to the site of 

 planting. 



On purchasing the plants from nurseries, or raising them at 

 home, the following conditions are worthy of being observed : — 



1st, The plants should be grown upon a sandy or light loamy 

 soil — never upon clay or wet ground. 



2d, The soil should not be recently or richly manured, which 

 is apt to force the plants into a luxuriant top growth, but should 

 have produced at least one crop of cereals between the period of 

 manuring and that of cropping with poplar. 



3d, The plants should not stand more than two years in the 

 rows where first planted as cuttings or layers, and should be 

 lifted and transplanted each year afterwards till the time of 

 finally planting them in the forest ground. 



4:th, The situations, both of the permanent and temporary 

 nurseries, should be such as are well exposed to the action of the 

 elements, because if plants are not inured to them in the nursery 

 ground, how are they able to stand them when removed ? These 

 precautions, therefore, are by no means unimportant, and ought 

 not to be overlooked. 



A question is often asked, Which are the best sorts of poplar 

 for cultivation in this country ? We answer, much depends upon 

 the soil and situation. If the soil be of first-rate quality, and 

 the situation favourable, I would plant black Italian poplar, 

 profit being the sole object sought. On similar soil, but in a 

 situation more exposed, I would plant black poplar, which is 

 less liable to be broken with the wind than the former. Again, 

 if an inferior quality of soil be taken, the subsoil wet, but 

 situation sheltered, 1 would plant the white or woolly-leaved 

 poplar. With similar soil, but exposed situation, I would plant 

 the gray poplar, whose foliage and branches suffer less by wind 

 than those of the white poplar. When the soil is very poor, and 

 exposure greater than is suitable for any of the preceding species, 

 I would plant the aspen poplar, the hardiest of them all. For 

 profitable planting the fore-mentioned sorts would supply all 



