TRANSACTIONS OF NORTHERN ILL. HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 321 



that I do not find in the botanical books. It is dioicious — that is, having 

 the male and female blossoms on different trees. Prof. Asa Gray says of 

 Gleditschia: "Flowers polygamous." — We do not ciuestion the /<7r/, if 

 applied to varieties other than G. Triacanthus — Honey Locust. There 

 are ten trees of this variety on my grounds. All of them have flowers, 

 but four only produce seed. Most of them are thornless, as you may set- 

 by these twigs taken from them. There is but one tree on the place that 

 has thorns. The Honey Locust is never materially injured by insects. 

 The locust borer {C/yfiis robinia:) — so fatal to the Black Locust—does not 

 attack the Honey Locust. A brown beetle {^Lytta cineria) feeds upon the 

 leaves to a very limited extent, preferring the young and tender leaves. 

 Last spring, some six hundred to eight hundred i)lants, from three to five 

 inches in height, had come up from seed deposited in a corner of my gar- 

 den. Observing, one day, that these young plants were covered with 

 insects that were greedily devouring the leaves and young shoots, I called 

 upon my neighbor, Dr. LeBaron, State Entomologist, to give me an intro- 

 duction to my visitors. He did so, under the name of Lytta cineria. 

 Thinking their room preferable to their company, I dissolved a table-spoon- 

 ful of Paris green in a gallon of water, and gave the bugs and plants a 

 sprinkling. The Cineria left instanter. Visiting the plants a few days 

 afterwards, to see if my visitors had returned, I could not find a solitary 

 bug. The remedy proved to be a most effectual one ; it had driven off 

 all the bugs, and killed all the plants. We have no knowledge of the value 

 of this tree for posts and timber, other than that stated by " A Subscrib- 

 er." As a shade tree, we consider it among the best. It has a large, 

 dense head, is not easily broken by storms, and is free from injury b\ 

 insects. The tree is attracting some attention as a hedge plant, as the 

 following will show: 



Honey Locust Hedges. — Mr. Joseph Hoopes, one of the best 

 pomologists of Pennsylvania, writes to the New York Tribune in relation 

 to the Honey Locust as a hedge plant : 



" The Honey L<jcust differs from the Osage Orange, it being a stouter and less branch- 

 ing hedge plant; therefore to insure a perfectly formed, and, what is of the greatest 

 importance, an imper\'ious barrier, trim severely while young and secure a thick growth 

 at the bottom ; or, as some of the growers insist upon doing, allow the young plants to 

 grow at will for a year or two, and then cut down to the ground, thus obtaining a 

 stronger growth. Knowing so well the benefits of the old system, so long tested and 

 proven satisfactory, I prefer to abide by it f(jr the present. This branching from the 

 ground is the most desirable feature in the work — in fact it is indispensable." 



A second part of this paper treated of the Black Locust, giving a 

 history of its destruction in the State by the locust borer, {Clytus ro- 

 biniae). He quotes from Dr. Walsh to show that there is no danger that 

 this borer will attack our fruit trees; and from Asa Fitch, of New York. 

 that this is a native American insect, and having been so long known 

 here it cannot be considered safe to plant seeds of this variety ; as the 

 insect, now prevalent over almost the entire United States, attacks the 



