Anyone have guesses on what kind of tree this might be from?

[Woody912]

It seems like a good lumber substitute for pine as it's light but harder. May have no better durability when it comes to moisture, but one turns to cypress, cedar, or redwood when you're really looking for that. I would guess because it's not as uniform and straight a tree as pine it's not seen as viable to commercially harvest as much. In Europe they have a bunch of different tall straight poplars, while in the US poplar is often used interchangeably with Eastern cottonwood. Then there's western black cottonwood too, which I'm less familiar with. I'm curious where they do sell poplar as lumber in the US, what it is. My guess is probably one of the Canadian poplars. You rarely ever see any lumber being sold commercially as cottonwood. This is a great piece on the undervaluing of cottonwood. https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/misunderstood-maligned-rethinking-the-cottonwood

I'm loving the tangents this thread has taken. Some of the most fun, informative, thoughtful posts I've seen on a thread in awhile. Like pdqdl reminds us, he is an arborist. Many folks on here are. It's arboristsite after all. Shouldn't be a surprise that we're not all chainsaw hacks and that there are a lot of educated people on here with serious tree knowledge. But doesn't always show itself. "Educated" has become a bad word in some circles that people associate with elitism or academia, but it just means you've learned information and processed it, it doesn't have to be from school. When I was living in Mexico, I was telling a Mexican friend I couldn't believe one of our "educated" neighbors believed the myth that if you put a full plastic water bottle on a lawn, dogs wouldn't poo there. My friend corrected me - "Rafa went to university, but he's not educated."

In Indiana the state tree usually called poplar which is actually tulip tree is fairly valuable and used in furniture production, molding etc. I have seen it bring as high as $.70/bf at the sawmill. Cottonwood brings about $.29 as pallet lumber. Very high in moisture with a reversing grain, I would think it would be very prone to twist and warp

 

[dboyd351]

The downhill is permanent, as is the gravity,

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Temporary, or permanent downhill?
I can see a need for some sophisticated pressure-limiting check valves all the way down the hill. An accidentally perforated line at the bottom of a 200 foot long gasoline siphon could get ugly. Especially when connected to a body of water.

For decades my Dad has beaten marina fuel prices by using a plastic 55 gallon drum on its side with a 20' fuel hose and fuel handle. Fills the drum to a max of 35 gallons most of the time. Backs his truck up to the edge of the marina near his slip, opens up the valve to let gravity start flowing through the hose, and then presses the handle trigger to pump into the boat. Has hardly ever spilled any over the years compared to the mess of gas jugs. We've always done it as a two person operation though so someone can turn off the drum valve ASAP if there's a hose leak.

In Indiana the state tree usually called poplar which is actually tulip tree is fairly valuable and used in furniture production, molding etc. I have seen it bring as high as $.70/bf at the sawmill. Cottonwood brings about $.29 as pallet lumber. Very high in moisture with a reversing grain, I would think it would be very prone to twist and warp

Liriodendron tulipifera, or yellow poplar, yeah, I think that's one of the more common lumber forms of poplar, though as you say, it's actually tulip tree and more closely related to magnolia than poplar. Cottonwood is insanely high in moisture content and hard to dry without a lot of attention to it and will twist and warp otherwise. But just for your own production if you mill a tree and stay on top of the drying with some good weight on top and relentless retightening of plenty of straps, you can get really good results.