THE COTTONWOOD.
P. deltoidea, Marsh.
The cottonwood justifies its existence, if ever a tree did. On our Western plains, where the watercourses are slug gish and few and often run dry in midsummer, few trees grow; and the settler and traveler is grateful for the cotton , 0 .
woods. The pioneer on the Western prairie planted it for shade and for wind-breaks about his first home. Many of these trees attain great age and in protected situations are magnificent though unsymmetrical trees, shaking out each spring a new head of bright green, glossy foliage, each leaf responsive to the lightest breeze.
"Necklace-bearing poplar," it has been called, from the fact that children find pleasure in stringing for beads the green, half-grown pods containing the miimte seeds. They also delight in gathering the long, red caterpillar like catkins of the staminate flowers, the pollen bearers, from the sterile trees. A fertile tree is sometimes counted
a nuisance in a dooryard because its pods set free a great mass of cotton that collects in window screens, to the annoyance of housewives. But this seed time is soon over.
Just these merits of quick growth, prettiness, and te nacity of life, belong to the Carolina Poplar, a variety of native cottonwood that lines the streets of the typical suburban tract opened near any American city. The leaves are large and shine with a varnish which protects them from dust and smoke. But the wind breaks the branches, destroys the symmetry of the tree's head, and in a few years the suburban community takes on a cheap and ugly look. The wise promoter will alternate slow-growing maples and elms with the poplars so that these permanent trees will be ready to take their places in a few years.