FOREIGN POPLARS. 



371 



he says, ''in boisterous weather are partially agi- 

 tated : one side is at rest while the other is in 

 motion. But the Italian Poplar waves in one 

 simple sweep from the top to the bottom, like 

 an ostrich feather on a lady's head. All the 

 branches coincide in the motion ; and the least 

 blast makes an impression upon it, when other 

 trees are at rest." 



The claims of the Lombardy Poplar to pic- 

 turesque beauty are very slight. Standing alone, 

 it is rather a deformity than an ornament ; 

 nevertheless, planted sparingly in clumps, it has 

 the effect of breaking too level a line, whether 

 formed by round-headed trees in plantations or 

 by large buildings. Loudon devotes seven or 

 eight pages of his Arboretum to the proving that 

 in many situations the Lombardy Poplar does 

 possess claims to picturesque beauty ; but men- 

 tions so many instances of its destroying the har- 

 mony of the landscape, that his arguments are far 

 from carrying conviction with them. In England 

 we are most familiar with Poplars planted in a 

 formal row in front of some suburban cottage. 

 In such situations they are sadly misplaced. Amid 

 scenery, too, which has any pretension to wild- 

 ness, they have a decidedly bad effect, converting 

 the natural woodland into an artificial plantation ; 

 for they do not, like most other introduced 

 trees, blend with those by which they are sur- 

 rounded, but seem to tower above them all, to 

 proclaim, as it were, their foreign origin. This 

 objection, of course, will not apply to them in 

 their native haunts ; there, no doubt, they har- 

 monise vv^ith the other natural objects around 

 them. I have nowhere seen them so decidedly 



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