6i 



The popku" is generally propagated by cuttings, 

 or from suckers, which the asp in particular throws 

 u]i in almndance. They grow freely in woods after 

 the underwood has been fallen, and die down 

 in a few years as the surrounding coppice wood 

 rises. 



Like most rapid-growing trees, the poplar 

 has a brief duration of life. Where trees are 

 required in a short time, there is probably no 

 tree that will serve the purpose better than the 

 poplar. 



In early summer, the young leaves, with their 

 fresh white down, give the white poplar a 

 particularly bright appearance, and one does 

 occasionally meet with a handsome specimen of 

 the black poplar, like the subject of our photo- 

 graph ; but frequently the poplar is rather a stiff- 

 looking tree, thinly clothed, and perhaps devoid of 

 branches for twenty or thirty feet from its base. 

 The not uncommon practice of cropping the stem, 

 besides disfiguring the tree, is of course harmful to 

 it. Through the cells of their leaves, plants take 

 in and digest the carbonic acid gas which is so 

 essential to their nourishment. 



Of the foreign poplars cultivated in England, 

 the Lombardy poplar, P. fastigiata, a variety of 

 the black poplar, is the most familiar. It is easil}' 

 distinguishable by its cypress-like growth and by 

 the roughness of its bark. On the banks of the 



