Hi Ken and others tonight:
I believe that your comments were only meant to be constructive, and to that end I highly value your comments and enjoy your posts, I am sure that everyone that has passed by would say the same thing.
I have found out over the years of conversations with people from all areas of the world that things were created in many different ways and with many different materials, especially in the building trades where tree types come into use. Poplar around here was not a valued wood type mainly because I suppose of the abundance of other more valuable types, eventhough to the untrained eye the logs and freshly sawn lumber looks ok in reality the eventual dried lumber is inferior in many different ways.
As a boy growing up I was quickly trained to shun poplar trees if others were available, and really it wasn't until I became an adult that reality of the fact quickly struck home.
My dad planted a grove of California poplar on this farm lot about 1940 not because of it value but mainly because of the quick growth habit, it was needed for a wind break around the buildings
These trees now are reaching maturity and many have had to be cut down to avoid damage to the surrounding buildings they are very brittle and during the last ice storm a few years ago many of the trees were practically denuded of limbs, what a mess was left after the ice left the region.
I might say that we all learned a great lesson that mother nature can really get her back up when she wants to.
I must say before leaving that eventho in a previous post I aluded to the poor quality of poplar even for burning I have had to succumb to using poplar in my wood fired high efficiency stove just to get rid of the the wood from these very poplar trees as they have to come down, and I must say it is not too bad in a controlled burning environment but not good in the stoves of yesteryear that one could not control the burning rate.
NH
