112 The Journal of Forestry, 



"What is new to me in the pages of this first issue relates chiefly to the 

 poplar tree, of which there are many varieties, but the tlacTx. Italian poplar, 

 which is of very rapid growth, is put before us in your pages as a valuable 

 timber tree, and I have read with much interest the account of it furnished 

 by Mr, McLaren, of Hopetoun (at p. 9). 



Hitherto I have regarded this tree as rather outside of the forester's 

 catalogue — a weedy, presumptuous aspirant, of very little use, and less 

 ornament — perhaps from its being chiefly found planted in hedgerows, and 

 shooting up with a kind of impudent indifference to the manner in which 

 it associates itself, as to effect and keeping, with the surrounding 

 landscape, as if disdaining to be classed with trees of less lofty but more 

 substantial pretensions, and delighting to look down on them with super- 

 cilious contempt. But Mr. McLaren redeems it from these derogatory 

 charges, and exhibits it in quite a new and agreeable light, till we can 

 almost fancy it destined to replenish Great Britain with building timber 

 when the pine forests of America, from which we now derive a large portion 

 of our supplies, are exhausted — a consummation which it is confidently 

 predicted will occur, at their present rate of destruction, within the next 

 ten years. 



However, there are two or three questions which occur to me that 

 perhaps I may be allowed to put through the medium of your columns. I 

 have never met with poplar among marketable timbers, either native or 

 imported, for building, agricultural, or other purposes, such as machinery, 

 mill-work, or furniture, nor do I know what speciality it is adapted for. 

 Yet Mr. McLaren informs us that a tree of this species, containing 80 cubic 

 feet of timber, sold for £8 12s. 6d. where it was cut down, in Linlithgowshire, 

 in December last, which sum is considerably more than a balk of pitch 

 pine of the same contents, Avell squared and delivered ready for use all the 

 way from Pensacola, would fetch on the quay of the neighbouring port of 

 Grangemouth. The inquiry naturally arises, What are the particulair 

 excellences of poplar wood to entitle it to this preference ? 



I am aware there is a valuable wood in Canada known to commerce as 

 hacmetac, which is, I believe, a species of poplar used in ship building, and 

 so much esteemed that it entitles a vessel timbered with it to a higher 

 class at Lloyd's than almost any other wood, not excepting the oak of thafe 

 country. But whether we have this tree among us in Great Britain, and 

 ■what its habits of growth may be, I do not know. Some obliging forester 

 on the other side of the Atlantic will perhaps favour us with a description, 

 of this tree as it appears at its maturity in its native land. 



Again, I have always supposed the tall straight and fast-growing poplar 

 to be a sq/y^wood, but Mr, McLaren classes it with hard woods. Perhaps 

 it hardens in seasoning, like alder, a poor brittle tree when growing, but 

 tough enough when converted to broom, mop, and light implement handles. 

 On cutting down a green young poplar tree some four or five inches in 

 diameter and thirty feet high it seemed like chopping at a Swede turnip. 



In America they say it takes a hundred years to produce a pine tree that 

 will yield a piece of timber a foot square and fifty feet long, or a load of 



