PARK AND CEMETERY. 
2 27 
NO. 6: BEFORE. 
NO. 7: AFTER. 
NO. 9: RESULT, FOLLOWING SEA- 
SON. 
THE CAROLINA POPLAR AS A CITY SHADE TREE 
By A. T. Hastings, Jr., City Forester, Jersey City, N. J. 
II. Treatment of Poplars Already 
Planted. 
The poplar should not be cut back until 
it is at least eight inches in diameter at the 
ground. Cut back to the desired height, 
cutting enough, however, to obviate the 
danger of the snapping off of large limbs 
during high winds and at the same time cut 
back all side limbs. I have for the past 
few years experimented on the different 
methods of cutting back the poplar. The 
standard method of trimming a tree is to 
make all cuts close to a growing limb or 
on a line with the trunk, so as to leave no 
knobs or stumps on the tree. Following 
out this rule, I selected a street having 
close to one hundred poplars of different 
sizes growing on both sides. Each cut was 
made close to a branch, cutting off at least 
one-third of the top as well as of side 
branches, but at the same time cutting so 
each tree was of the same height after be- 
ing trimmed. The accompanying photo- 
graphs, Nos. 6 and 7, show the method 
pursued. The following summer produced 
the beautiful results as shown in photo- 
graph No. 9. It will be seen that a close 
growing, well shaped head crown resulted 
from this trimming. The entire street pre- 
sented a beautiful sight the following sum- 
mer — -photo No. 10. Instead of wide 
spreading, irregular growing trees, no two 
alike, were seen close growing uniform 
trees. All danger of breaking limbs re- 
moved and the leaves large and found to 
remain on the trees much later. 
On another street several poplars were cut 
back, as shown in photo No. 11, with no re- 
gard as to any rule of trimming. The limbs 
were simply cut off wherever it became nec- 
essary to preserve uniformity of height, 
leaving long, unbranched stumps. The re- 
sults of this trimming the following sum- 
mer produced the amazing results as shown 
in photo No. 12. As in the case of the 
more careful trimming, a well shaped, close 
growing tree resulted. However, resulting 
from this latter method of trimming, a few 
trees died the following summer, after a 
few weeks’ growth had started, resulting 
probably from the removal of so much 
leaf surface at one time. In the more 
careful method of trimming I have never 
lost a tree and have trimmed many thou- 
sands that way. In this method a consid- 
erable more leaf surface is allowed to re- 
main on the tree than in the other case. 
All these trees were allowed to grow two 
years. The resulting growth is shown in 
photos Nos. 14 and 15. It will be noted 
that the growth is much the same in either 
case as to length and amount and also as 
to the large amount of growth coming 
from the sides of each cut. I had hoped to 
control this by cutting back to a branch, as 
it is a bad feature. I expected that the 
small branches that were allowed to remain 
would so draw the sap and energy of the 
tree as to preclude the growing of so large 
NO. 11: ANOTHER METHOD OF CUTTING BACK. 
NO. 12: RESULT, FOLLOWING SUMMER. 
