26 TREE-PLANTING. 



but on the other hand, young poplar trees are gene- 

 rally considered good-looking, their fresh green 

 foliage being very gay and bright, while the young 

 wood is not by any means bad-looking. The poplar, 

 however, is the most useful of all trees for furnishing 

 an effect in a bare locality, being remarkable for its 

 rapidity of growth. The genus (Populus) is of the 

 natural order Salicacece, which produces unisexual 

 flowers, those of the two sexes being placed on separate 

 plants, and consists of many species, natives of all 

 countries, very diversified in foliage and form, but all 

 remarkable for rapidity of growth. Interspersed with 

 other kinds they make a pleasing variety, and can at 

 all events be cut down by those who are not partial 

 to them, after they have performed the task for which 

 they were designed, in furnishing shelter and em- 

 bellishment, while the more valued and slower-growing 

 trees were attaining a size adapted for the purpose in 

 view. 



The Lomlardy Poplar, or Fastigiate (P.fastigiata), 

 is easily recognised by its upright growth, with its 

 lateral branches closely gathered round about its trunk, 

 forming a taper shape. It was introduced into Britain 

 about the middle of the eighteenth century, and soon 

 became common in England, being easily propagated 

 by cuttings, in the same way as the willow. Travellers 

 on the Continent have remarked the long spectral 

 rows of these trees along the margins of fields, and 

 compare them unfavourably with the hedgerow timber 

 trees of England, consisting of the elm, and the oak. 

 The uniformity of its growth, and the straight lines in 

 which they are planted, added to the flatness of the 

 country, causes it to wear a monotonous appearance, 



