ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 51 



in damp, light, alluvial soils, in valleys and on the banks 

 of rivers ; it grows well in strong land, and even in 

 clays, and in the very worst soils it manages to get 

 along. In fact, you cannot put them out of their place. 

 They will grow from seed, which, ripening in spring 

 should be sown at once and slightly covered, but they 

 are always propagated by cuttings, just like poplars. 

 The white-willow grows to a height of sixty feet, but 

 the yellow never exceeds forty. Their growth is mar- 

 vellously quick, and, under good ordinarv conditions, 



25.— Salix V tellina — Leaves of the yellow-willow. 



these trees have been known to attain a height of thirty 

 feet by one foot and a ha^f in diameter in ten years. As 

 a firew^ood, the willow is preferable to the poplar and 

 the fir, and has the advantage of beating both of them 

 in rapidity of growth. It is hardly right to talk of the 

 willows as forest-trees ; their principal use is to act as 

 nurses to the more delicate species, which, in their early 

 days, require protection against the sun and wind. They 



