488 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



to the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts 

 lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in 

 Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North 

 Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio 

 and Indiana. However, considerable quantities of good yellow poplar 

 have been cut in other regions. 



The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many 

 purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle. 

 It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual 

 rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet 

 select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are 

 numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks 

 and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly 

 stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities. 

 In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree. 

 The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some 

 trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little 

 figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of 

 some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when exposed to the 

 weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and 

 bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of 

 builders. 



The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of 

 the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile 

 coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best 

 land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was 

 not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees 

 scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and 

 shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs, 

 and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear, 

 first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds 

 its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. 

 In the yellow poplar's region it was the principal wood of which the 

 pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is 

 still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked 

 easily and was light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring 

 floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelbbats, barges, and 

 other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few 

 and streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber 

 superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and 

 free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough 

 to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic. 



