824 THE POPLAR. 
As a town tree it has no rival. It rises in a narrow space, 
and endures the influence of smoke better than almost any 
other; and its value is greatly enhanced by its springing 
rapidly, and appearing in all its characteristic form in a very 
few years. Dr. Walker records a tree, on the banks of a canal 
near Brussels, which in fifteen years grew to the height of 
eighty feet, with a trunk from seven to eight feet in circum- 
ference. In France, on the banks of the Seine at Rouen, 
trees of this species, bordering some of the public promenades, 
stand 150 feet high. In England, some of the finest specimens 
produced were planted by a cottager in the village of Great 
Tew, in Oxfordshire, who lived to see them, at the age of fifty 
years, 125 feet high. The finest tree in Scotland lately was 
supposed to be one that was blown down on the lawn at 
Darnaway Castle, in Morayshire, in a gale in 1860. At 
Taymouth, in Perthshire, this tree stands upwards of 100 feet 
in height. 
The trunk, in an advanced state, is deeply furrowed, and 
the tree is not apt to produce undergrowths. Unlike trees in 
general, its whole top waves with the wind in one gentle 
sweep, and its shade is very harmless to the crops in its 
vicinity. The extensive use of this poplar in the division of 
fields on the Continent suggests the practicability of employing 
the living tree as a support for wire-fence along fields. Of all 
others it grows most upright, and fresh posts of it inserted into 
good soil take root and vegetate. In some parts of the east 
of England it is grown on marshy ground in thickets, two and 
three feet apart; and no tree admits of being grown more 
closely. In five or six years the timber is serviceable for poles 
in fences, and for hurdles for enclosing sheep, and similar 
purposes. Although when exposed to the atmosphere it proves 
less durable than many sorts of timber, it should be remem- 
bered that its propagation is simple and cheap, its timber is 
soon obtained, very easily worked, and handy from its light- 
ness, and the ease with which it can be removed from place 
to place. Although the tree cannot be recommended as 
coppice-wood, yet when cut while it is young, and not very 
