Editor's Box. 273 



ITALIAN POPLAR. 



Sir, — I have not had the May number of your Journal, and I have missed 

 an article l)y Mr. McLaren, of Hopetown, on the Italian Poplar. Referring 

 meanwhile to the remarks of " an Amateur " last month, I will, with your 

 leave, state some particulars herein on the subject, such as have come 

 under my observation during a pretty lengthened experience. It is a long 

 time now since I began to cultivate the Italian poplar; I think I may 

 surely claim the merit of having introduced it to the list of forest trees, and 

 at any rate of having grown and sold it as such to a greater extent perhaps 

 than any other single individual or firm in Britain at the present day. Thirty 

 or forty years ago the larch, which had previously been grown here for all 

 purposes and on all sorts of soil and situations without much discrimina- 

 tion, under the influences of our changed climate, began to showunmistakable 

 signs of failure. It is now and has for mauy years past been discarded 

 on most of the central or inland districts of Scotland. At this juncture the 

 ■Italian poplar, as we have it here, seemed to me not an unworthy substi- 

 tute, equal to the larch in my opinion for various country uses, some of 

 which I may mention hereafter. About this time an enterprising forester 

 at Eglinton Castle, the late Mr. Robert Gardiner, took an interest in my 

 hobby, and for several years had some thousands of it annually planted out 

 on the estates there. These trees may now be seen, at least were by the 

 writer within the last few years, growing amongst the covers in all direc- 

 tions, many of them from 70 to 80 and 90 feet in height, and from 12 to 15 

 and 16 inches through for 20 and 30 feet from the ground; any intelhgent 

 wood merchant or coal master coming across some lots of such timber 

 laid out at the cover side, w^ould not, I fancy, give himself much concern 

 about the name. Your correspondent "Amateur " might have some difficulty 

 in detecting virtue in the sticks ; the wood merchant in all probability 

 would see something more to his liking, viz., value. 



Within the last six months I noticed lying in a nobleman's wood yard a 

 log of wood squared and ready for the bench, which I found to measure 13 

 feet in length and 20 inches on the side from end to end. Being somewhat 

 puzzled to make out its kind, I stripped off the bark. The forester, a man of 

 great practical experience, seeing that I was interested in the stick, said at 

 once, " That is the Italian poplar, and it is only a limb or branch of the 

 parent tree." I was afterwards shown the same wood cut up for nearly all 

 the estate purposes. I was particularly struck with some planks cut at 

 about 24 feet in length by 10 inches in depth, as fine sound timber as 

 could be desired, and for roofing quite as durable as any other. 



Yours respectfully, 



John Dikes. 

 Kilmarnock, 



20th July, 1877. 



VOL. I. 



