December 10, 1916 



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•JjJ- The Pedigree of a Splendid Tree -^ 



If 'blood tells" in human beings, and in the lower animals as well, 

 why should not pedigree count in the vegetable world also? 



Take the yellow poplar for an example. This is the finest hard- 

 wood tree in the world, if judged by size, form, foliage, bloom, and 

 the wide rajige of uses in which its wood is employed. In girth of 

 trvmk it may not equal the largest hollow sycamores; but it overtops 

 in height aU its competitors among American hardwods; and in grace 

 of form, and in yield of excellent lumber, no hardwood of this coun- 

 try equals it. The oak, which is justly called king of hardwoods if 

 the utilization of its wood is alone considered, must take a back seat 

 when size of trunk is considered, and comparison is made with yellow 

 poplar. 



There is ancestry back of this splendid tree. No royal house 

 among the kings of earth has anything to compare with it, not even 

 MeneUk of Abyssinia who traces his line back to Solomon When the 

 first white men settled in the United States they made the acquaint- 

 ance of yellow poplar. They never heard of it before, because it did 

 not grow in Europe. The Virginia Indians called it "vikiok" and 

 made canoes of it. 



History goes no farther back than that in its account of the yellow 

 poplar; but that is really the last page of this tree's voluminous 

 and romantic history. Talk of the survival of the fittest. Here is 

 an example of it. Geologists and palaeobotanists (those who study 

 fossU botany) are the yeUow poplar's biographers. They have dug 

 its life history out of rocks and clays where its leaves and flowers 

 have lain buried during thousands and millions of years. This tree 

 was in America at a time so remote that in comparison with it, the 

 period covered by human liistory is as a hand 's span to the distance 

 round the world. 



The records of ueology show that yellow poplar made its appear- 

 ance on earth during what is known as the cretaceous age. It was 

 after the coal beds were formed, but before the ice age. Coal was 

 formed of palms, ferns, and the like, in vast swamps, as is supposed; 

 but after that the land became dry, and it was then that the hard- 

 woods made their appearance, and formed forests surpassing any- 

 thing known on earth today. There are about 500 kinds of trees in 

 America north of Mexico now. The number was double some millions 

 of years ago. The magnificent forests of that remote time seem to 

 have sprung into existence all at once. The records in the form of 

 leaf prints in the rocks, show no gradual and slow development ; but 

 the forest's full and wonderful richness came suddenly. 



Among the earliest of the hardwoods in those forests was yellow 

 poplar — not one solitary species as at present, but sixteen of them. 



every species apparently being as fine as ours of today, or finer. The 

 climate was warm, and trees which now grow no further north than 

 the United States, then flourished in Greenland. Yellow poplar was 

 in that remote northern land, and its companions were sassafras, red 

 gum, sycamore, bald cypress, and the "big tree" now confined to 

 California. At that remote time yellow poplar grew in Europe 

 where it no longer exists. 



The sixteen species which once flourished in America have dwindled 

 to one. Fifteen species perished in a tremendous catastrophe which 

 changed the face of much of the northern hemisphere. It was a win- 

 ter a million years long, known as the Ice Age. The ice kiUed every 

 living plant in its path. It pushed from the north down to middle 

 United States, burying everything. A single species of yellow poplar 

 escaped, and that one is with us yet. It was probably growing at 

 that time south of the region of extreme cold, and thus managed to 

 survive, and when the ice sheet finally melted away, the yeUow poplar 

 worked its way north again, and reached the southern provinces of 

 I!anada. Some of its former companions, notably red g\un, bald cypress 

 and ' ' big tree, ' ' never succeeded in working their way again as far 

 north as Canada; while the yellow poplar and the California big 

 tree parted company during the lee Age, never to meet again. 



The apex of the yellow poplar leaf has a characteristic notch. The 

 shapes of the leaves of all the species from the earliest till the pres- 

 ent, have varied greatly, but the notch has always been there. Among 

 the earliest poplar leaves were some shaped like a peach leaf, except 

 for the notch. Then came the form like a ' ' fiddle, ' ' but still the notch 

 was in evidence. There was one whieli looked somewhat like an oak 

 leaf, with the notch present. Changes followed until the present 

 form was developed. 



They not only "come back," but they usually find the "Wel- 

 come" sign out when they call on one of their regular customers. 

 That is the kind of salesman worth having on the payroll. 



Oysters are trademarked — why~not lumber? 



California orange growers spend $300,000 yearly in advertising. If 

 the lumbermen did as well their associations would have $6,650,000 a 

 year for promotion. Ever try to shovel sand with a teaspoon? 



One publication carried $2,629,000 worth of advertising for auto- 

 mobiles and automobile accessories last year. Why? 



YELLOW POPLAE LEAVES OP VARIOUS GEOLOGICAL PERIODS 

 -Willow-leaf poplar five million years ago; 2 — Fiddle-leaf poplar four million years ago; 3 — Oak-leaf poplar three milliou years ago; 



leaf poplar a million years ago ; 5 — Yellow poplar leaf of the present time. 



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