196 populus. 



and other wooden ware, and indeed is applicable to most 

 purposes for which the timber of the Poplars is adapted. 

 Upon the Continent, and especially in Flanders, it is ex- 

 tensively planted as a hedge-row tree together with the 

 White Poplar, and cut down at the age of twenty-four or 

 twenty-five years, to make sabots or wooden shoes, for 

 which its lightness and tenacity of fibre adapt it. 



In dampish situations, planted in mass, or mixed with 

 the Grey Poplar, where poles, small rafters, and railing, 

 are in demand, it would make a quick return, as a growth 

 of eight or ten years would render it fit for these purposes. 



When cut over young, it throws up numerous shoots, 

 which may be used like willows for basket-making ; it 

 also bears lopping much better than the species already 

 described, and as a pollard produces an abundant supply 

 of stakes and poles, but is almost useless as fuel, in which 

 respect, compared with the beech, it is stated to be as 792 

 to 1540. 



The bark is used by the tanner, and in Russia it enters 

 into the manufacture of Morocco leather, and as it becomes 

 very thick and corky upon old trees, it affords a material 

 to support and float the nets of the fisherman. 



The foliage of the Black Poplar is of a pleasant pale 

 green, smooth and shining, and producing sparkling and 

 ever-varying lights, as it flutters with the gentlest zephyr, 

 in the beams of the sun ; it is, however, late in expanding, 

 as it is seldom in fall leaf before the end of May or begin- 

 ning of June, a disadvantage that also attends the cul- 

 tivation of the Black Italian Poplar. 



The catkins of the male appear in March or April, 

 long before the expansion of the leaves, and, being large 

 and of a deep red colour, produce a rich effect at that 

 early period of the year. 



