and size, as well as of lusty vigor, and I have
always liked it since. The cheerful bark is not the least of its
attractions--but it is a tree for its own place, and not for every
place, by reason of the tremendous colonizing power of its root-sprouts.

I wonder, by the way, if many realize the persistence and vigor of the
roots of a tree of the "suckering" habit? Some years ago an ailanthus, a
tree of vigor and beauty of foliage but nastiness of flower odor, was
cut away from its home when excavation was being made for a building,
which gave me opportunity to follow a few of its roots. One of them
traveled in search of food, and toward the opportunity of sending up a
shoot, over a hundred feet!

The impending scarcity of spruce logs to feed the hungry maws of the
machines that make paper for our daily journals has turned attention to
several forms of the rapid-growing poplar for this use. The aspen is
acceptable, and also the Carolina poplar, and these trees are being
planted in large quantities for the eventual making of wood-pulp. Even
today, many newspapers are printed on poplar, and exposure to the rays
of the truth-searching sun for a few hours will disclose the yellowness
of the paper, if not of the tree from which it has been ground.

[Illustration: Lombardy poplar]

Few whose eyes are turned upward toward the trees have failed to note
that exclamation-point of growth, the Lombardy poplar. Originating in
that portion of Europe indicated by its common name, and, indeed, a
botanical form of the European black poplar, it is nevertheless widely
distributed in America. When it has been properly placed, it introduces
truly a note of distinction into the landscape. Towering high in the
air, and carrying the eye along its narrowly oval contour to a skyward
point, it is lofty and pleasing in a park. It agreeably breaks the
sky-line in many places, and is emphatic in dignified groups. To plant
it in rows is wrong; and I say this as an innocent offender myself. In
boyhood I lived along the banks of the broad but shallow Susquehanna,
and enjoyed the boating possible upon that stream when it was not
reduced, as graphically described by a disgusted riverman, to merely a
heavy dew. Many times I lost my way returning to the steep bluff near my
home after the sun had gone to rest, and a hard pull against the swift
current would ensue as I skirted the bank, straining eyes for landmarks
in the dusk. It occurred to me to plant