i6 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



Black Locust. 

 Robinia Psi udacocia — Linn. 



The range of the Mack locust extends 

 through the eastern part of the United 

 States from Pennsylvania (on the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains from Locust Ridge in 

 Marion County) to northern Georgia, al- 

 ii gh it has been widely naturalized through 



cultivation and other agencies throughout the 

 country oast of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. It is perhaps indigenous as 

 a Ionn shrub in parts of Arkansas 

 and .■astern Indian Territory, and 

 also in the Great Smoky Mountains 

 of eastern Tennessee. It is no- 

 where common. In the Appalachian 

 forests it grows singly or in small 

 groups, but is most abundant and 

 of largest size on the western slopes 

 of the Alleghanies of West Vir- 

 ginia. It often spreads by under- 

 ground struts into broad thickets oi 

 small and often stunted trees. 



The black locust lias been exten- 

 sively introduced into Europe, both 



for orna ntation and' for wood, 



the first transplanting having been 

 made early in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury by Jean Kobin, the botanist 

 for whom the genus is named. 



In nearly all the states where it 

 is found it is known as the locust 

 ,,, 'Muck locust. It is also known 

 as the yellow locust in Vermont, 

 Massachusetts, New York, Pennsj I 

 vani-a, Delaware, Virginia, West 

 Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, 

 Illinois, Indiana, Kansas. Nebraska, 

 and Minnesota; as the white locust 

 in Rhode Island and Now York; 

 as the red locust, green locust, and 

 white locust iu Tennessee, as the 

 acacia in Louisiana, as the false 

 acacia in Smith Carolina, Alabama 

 and Texas, and as the honey locust 

 and. false acacia in Minnesota. In 

 Maryland it is known as the pea- 

 flower locust and post locust. Its 

 distinguishing characteristics arc the 

 Blusters of large pea-blossom shaped 

 flowers, the beau-shaped pods, three 

 to six inches in length, and the 

 prickles on the bark. 



Its leaves are compound and 

 alternate, with leaf-stalks that are 

 hollowed" at the base and which 

 cover the buds of the succeeding 

 year. They are from eight to 

 fourteen inches long; odd pinnate, with from 

 eleven to twenty-five oval leaflets; they are 

 entire, hetted-vein and glabrous; downy, when 

 young, and later pale beneath and dark-green 

 above, turning yelloV in early autumn. 



A peculiar habit of the tree is the folding 

 of its leaflets and the drooping of its leaves 

 on rainy days and on the approach of even- 

 ing. Parkinson, describing it in 1640, ob- 



FORTIETH PAPER. 



srived "each leaf foulding itself double 

 er; evening upon Sunne setting and open- 

 ing again upon the rising.'' 



The flowers open late in May or early in 

 June in axillary, drooping racemes and are 

 filled with nectar and very fragrant. Their 

 petals are white, pea-like, on slender pedicels 

 one-half inch long. The fruit ripens late iu 

 the autumn, is three to four inches long and 



TYPICAL FOREST GROWTH BLACK LOCUST, SWAIN 

 COUNTY. NORTH CAROLINA. 



one-half inch wide, with bright, red-brown 

 valves, usually four to eight seeled, and 

 mostly persistent until the end of winter or 

 early spring. The bark of the tree is from 

 one to one and a half inches thick, deeplj 

 furrowed, dark brown tinged with red, rough 

 and broken in ridges. 



Tic wood is heavy and exceedingly hard, 

 strong and close-grained, very durable in 



contact with the ground; brown or rarely 

 light green, with pale, yellow sapwood of two 

 or three layers of annual growth. The weight 

 of a cubic foot of the seasoned wood is forty- 

 five pounds. 



Snow says of this tree : ' ' Black locust 

 wood is tough, durable, unequaled for tor 

 sicmal strength and resilience, and is in ever) 

 way in the front rank of American woods 

 It is. fitted not only for exposed 

 constructions, but for finer articles, 

 having no superior for hubs, pins, 

 bolts and trenails. ' ' 



The black locust is an attractive- 

 tree when young, and grows rapidly, 

 becoming sturdy and spreading in a 

 few years. It reaches a height of 

 fn mi seventy to eighty feet and has 

 a trunk growing sometimes to three 

 and four feet in diameter, its usual 

 size being from ten to twenty four 

 inches, with small, brittle, usually 

 erect branches forming a narrow, 

 oblong head. 



The tree everywhere, except in the 

 mountainous parts of its natural 

 range, is subject to attack by an 

 insect called the locust-borer, which 

 rapidly destroys its value both as 

 timber and as an ornament. They 

 riddle the wood, even to the twigs, 

 and no effective means of combating 

 them are known. 



Commercially, the wood is used 

 for posts and ribs of vessels. It is 

 a very good wood for spokes, its 

 vertical resistance being one-third 

 greater than that of oak. It is also 

 uf'ten use, I lei- nines nt' ladders, but 

 its must important use in the United 

 States is for telegraph and telephone 

 insulator pins, being the most pre- 

 ferred wood for this purpose and 

 commanding the highest price. 



The picture showing typical for- 

 est growth of black locust, with 

 which this article is illustrated, is 

 from a photograph recently made 

 in the forests of the Montvale Lum- 

 ber Company in Swain county, 

 Neith Carolina, where the tree is 

 found interspersed on the ridges 

 villi red oak and chestnut oak. 



In most sections along the Ap- 

 palachian Range, where black locust 

 of the highest type grows in greater 

 profusion than in any other part of 

 the United States, very little atten- 

 tion has been paid to its utilization for com- 

 mercial purposes. With the immense increase 

 in the building of telegraph and telephone 

 lines, which creates an immense demand for 

 insulator pins, much more attention could be- 

 profitably paid by lumbermen in the sections 

 noted to the manufacture of these pins. 

 They command *a high price and the demand 

 exceeds the supply. 



