PART III 



THE WATER-LOVING TREES 



The Poplars — The Willows — The Hornbeams — The 

 Birches — The Alders — The Sycamores, or But- 

 TONwooDs — The Gum Trees — The Osage Orange 



THE POPLARS 



The poplars are plebeian trees, but they have a place to 

 fill and they fill it with credit. They are the hardy, rude 

 pioneers that go before and prepare the way for nobler 

 trees. Let a fire sweep a path through the forest, and the 

 poplar is likely to be the first tree to fill the breach. The 

 trees produce abundant seed, very much like that of 

 willows, and the wind sows it far and wide. The young 

 trees love the sun, and serve as nurse trees to more valu- 

 able hardwoods and conifers, that must have shade until 

 they become established. By the time the more valuable 

 species are able to take care of themselves, the poplars 

 have come to maturity and disappeared, for they are quick- 

 growing, short-lived trees. The wind plays havoc with 

 their brittle branches. Seldom has a good-sized poplar 

 tree any chiim to beauty. 



Tenacity of life, if not of fibre, belongs to the poplar 

 tribe. Twigs strike root and the roots send up suckers 

 from underground; cutting off these suckers only en- 



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