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AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



LANCELEAF COTTONWOOD (Populus acuminaia) is a small tree with 

 limited range, growing in the arid region along the eastern base of the 

 Rocky Mountains, southward from the Black Hills. It is found also 

 north of the Canadian border. It is usually fifteen or eighteen inches 

 in diameter, and thirty or forty feet high. Trunks seldom go to saw- 

 mills, but some local use is made of the wood. Trees are occasionally 

 planted for shade in towns of western Nebraska and Wyoming. 



FREMONT COTTONWOOD (Populus fremontii), called white cotton- 

 wood in New Mexico, but elsewhere simply cottonwood, grows from 

 western Texas to California, and as far north as Utah and Colorado. It 

 sometimes attains a diameter of five or six feet and a height of 100. The 

 Indians in New Mexico formerly made rude, clumsy ox carts of this 

 wood, without a scrap of iron or other metal in the vehicles. One of the 

 carts is preserved in the National Museum, Washington, D. C. The 

 wood is tough and light, but it is dull white, with no attractive figure. 

 Even the annual rings are hardly distinguishable. Logs are occasionally 

 sawed into lumber, and farmers in western Texas make wagon beds of it. 



