This paper presents a three-stage history of the poplar cross breeding inaccordance with the mode of parental utilization and gives the basic traits and a patternof procedure of cross breeding at each development stage. Key points are given of theprogress in modern cross breeding through parental selection with multi-level variationof individual phenotype and genotype and various provenance. A series of instances ofpoplar cross breeding in foreign countries is given to show that better result can be ob-tain...