OR ABELE TREE. 163 



often experience in summer, and this is a pretty sure indi- 

 cation of approaching rain. 1 



The White Poplar is a tree of very rapid growth, attain- 

 ing a height of from eighty to a hundred feet. When 

 about fifty or sixty years old it is in perfection ; soon after 

 this it begins to decay inwardly, but will continue growing 

 for a century longer. Evelyn recommends it as a fit tree 

 to be planted by "such late builders as seat their houses in 

 naked and unsheltered places, and that would put a guise 

 of antiquity upon any new inclosure ; since by these, while 

 a man is on a voyage of no long continuance, his house 



CATKINS OF GREY POPLAR. 



and lands may be so covered as to be hardly known at his 

 return." In England we rarely see many of them growing 

 together, as they are generally planted to contrast with 

 trees of darker foliage ; but in France they are in some 

 places so abundant as to be the prevailing trees in exten- 

 sive tracts of country, and their wood, called " white 

 wood," is used as fuel, to the exclusion of almost all other 

 firing. 



The timber, which is soft and light, was anciently used 

 for making shields, for which its property of yielding 

 before a blow eminently fitted it. Nails may be driven 

 into it without splitting it; hence it may be used with 



1 " I think there will be rain," a little girl was overheard to say, 

 " for the weather tree is showing its white lining." 



