Adventitious Shoots 



more wood than could be obtained from a tree 

 allowed to grow freely. 



Untouched by the axe, the poplar rises 

 as a majestic obelisk of foliage. The willow, 

 which is such an unpleasing object by the 

 side of our ditches, with its ugly capital 

 bristling with divergent rods, is in its natural 

 condition an exceptionally beautiful tree 

 with flexible branches and delicate foliage. 

 As ornamental trees they have nothing to 

 gain by man's interference with their way of 

 growth. But alas ! the useful and the 

 beautiful do not always coincide, and if we 

 wish these trees to produce plenty of brush- 

 wood and faggots, the decapitation, periodi- 

 cally repeated, changes them into pollards, 

 seamed with scars and disfigured by 

 wounds, but resisting the mutilation by 

 adventitious shoots, replacing in greater 

 abundance the branches of which they have 

 been deprived. 



Before we finish with these adventitious 

 shoots which multiply when the plant is 

 poorest, and resist destruction until it is 

 completely exhausted, we will recall the 

 weeds which it is so hard to expel from our 

 gardens if we limit our efforts to raking the 

 ground. We have exerted ourselves in 



79 



