THE POPLAR. 319 
plants. It is important that the plants to be used as stools 
be of the best varieties. From the remarkable contrast in 
the colours of the leaves of this species, the tree has a very 
ornamental effect when agitated by the wind; standing on 
the margins of lakes, or on the outskirts of large plantations, 
it appears to the greatest advantage. Though it is less hardy 
and less vigorous, yet it is more ornamental than the kind 
next noticed, which is considered by many a distinct species. 
P. a. canescens: The Grey, or Hoary Poplar.—This tree is 
a native of Scotland and of many parts throughout Britain. 
It is often found on low and uncultivated soil having a 
tendency to moisture, where it spreads from the root, yield- 
ing suckers profusely. It blossoms in April, when the male 
catkins appear very conspicuous on the tree, of a purple 
colour, just before the expansion of the leaves. As the tree 
does not readily strike by cuttings, the usual mode of propa- 
gation is by layers, as already described. In soft alluvial soil, 
somewhat moist, no tree will attain to a greater size in the 
space of ten, twenty, or forty years. After the age of sixty 
it commonly takes heart-rot, and is often at maturity at forty 
or fifty years of age. It is found to luxuriate in very ex- 
posed situations at a great elevation, and does not object to 
a considerable mixture of bog or peat-earth in the absence of 
stagnant moisture. Its rapid growth when young is not con- 
fined to any particular description of soil, provided it is soft, 
rich, and moist. The following is a statement of the compara- 
tive growth of trees formed for a screen or shelter plantation, 
twenty-eight years of age, on ground far too wet for growing 
large timber of the ordinary kinds, as the surface is frequently 
flooded for want of an exit at high tides, and where the sur- 
face soil is seldom more than eighteen inches above the rise 
of water :— 
Average girth at three feet above the surface. 
Poplar, Grey, : . : : 5 feet 2 inches. 
Do. Black Italian, . , : 4,4 , 
Do. Lombardy, : : : Dogs oy 
Lime, ash, beech, and birch, . 7 2, 3 
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