The Poplars 



We all concede that the cottonwood has faults. The brittle 

 wood cannot withstand the winds, the leaves drop untidily 

 through the summer, the cast-ofT staminate catkins are a nuisance 

 in spring, and the fluffy cottony seeds shed so deliberately in 

 early summer by the fertile trees fill the air and the meshes of 

 door and window screens to the exasperation of the whole neigh- 

 bourhood. 



But go out into one of the little breathing spaces called 

 parks in a great city like New York in the early spring days 

 when the children of the tenements and the stuffy flats are brought 

 out for a first breath of the spring air. The old cottonwood has its 

 buds all a-glisten with promise, and in a few days longer the 

 dainty little leaves twinkle all over the treetop with the most 

 cheerful green. In the late summer, in spite of its losses, the tree 

 still carries a bright green crown of shade which turns yellow 

 before it falls. With all its faults, it endures the heat of cities, 

 and the dust and soot with commendable patience. In the 

 protection of great buildings it does not suffer by winds as it 

 does in exposed situations. 



There are better, longer-lived trees for the open country, 

 but in cities the cottonwood has a use and a message of cheer for 

 rich and poor who look up and learn to know the tree. Unlike 

 the variety next described, the cottonwood takes on dignity with 

 added years. 



The Carolina Poplar, considered a variety (Carolinensis) of 

 the cottonwood above, is a strict pyramidal tree of vigorous and 

 surprisingly rapid growth. In cities the varnish on the leaves 

 evidently protects them from dust and smoke. Nurserymen 

 have exploited this tree in America and Europe far beyond its 

 merits, for though useful as a temporary tree, giving shade very 

 soon, poplars should give way gradually to more permanent 

 species planted with them. This poplar soon outgrows the beauty 

 and luxuriance of its youth, and becomes broken and ugly. 

 The immoderate planting of these trees gives a cheap character to 

 many an otherwise handsome town or country place. New 

 summer resorts and city "additions" show poplars in great 

 numbers about their premises. The "poplar habit" is a very 

 short-sighted one and expensive in the long run. J. Wilkinson 

 Elliott, of Pittsburg, persuades his clients to plant Balm of 

 (jilead, a much more satisfactory species. 



147 



