340 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



slowness in taking fire, which is such, that it is said that 

 the flames of a house on fire were stopped when they 

 came to that part where this timber had been used. 

 It smokes long before it flames, and is consequently a 

 bad fuel. 



Brooms are made of the twigs, and in some places 

 sheep are fed upon the dried leaves in winter. 



The foliage of this tree is of a glittering brightness, 

 and its shade is esteemed wholesome. It will flourish in 

 almost any soil, and the large thick leaves, full of juice, 

 which fall in such abundance in the autumn, are thought 

 to improve the ground they grow in : thus tracts of 

 waste land, not dry, may in a few years be rendered 

 fertile. 



In Kamschatka, the poor natives are sometimes re- 

 duced to the necessity of making bread from the inner 

 bark of this tree, as they do also of the fir, and as the 

 peasants of Norway do both of that and the birch. Paper 

 has been made from the cottony down of the seeds. In 

 Flanders a prodigious quantity of shoes are made of 

 Poplar wood, with which they supply all Holland. 

 The Black Poplar grows in the same countries as the 

 White. 



The Lombardy, Turin, or Po Poplar, Populus diia- 

 tata, differs from the Black, chiefly in its close conical 

 growth, in which it much resembles the cypress: the 

 leaves too are broader than they are long, whereas those 

 of the Black Poplar are the reverse. Some persons con- 

 sider it only as a variety of that species. The wood of 

 this tree is used for packing dry goods, as bales of 

 woollen ; and for folding pieces of silk upon ; its lightness 

 saving much expense in carriage. In Lombardy the 



