612 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
height of 30 ft. and upwards, in 10 years from the time they were planted. 
Cobbett and Withers record instances of much more rapid growth. The 
former, in his Woodlands (§ 382.), mentions a plantation at Coleshill, in 
which the trees averaged 19 ft. after being 4 years planted; and others at 
Botley, which, in 11 years had attained the height of 40 ft., with trunks 
“3 ft.2in. round at the bottom?’ (Jbid., § 358.); and in Withers’s Treatise, 
p. 254., mention is made of 900 plants, placed 4ft. apart in 1824, which, 
in 1828, had reached to from 13 ft. to 16 ft. in height, and were to be cut 
down, and used as hop-poles. 
A plantation of locusts, Scotch pines, sycamores, limes, Spanish chest- 
nuts, beeches, ashes, and oaks was made in 1812, at Earl’s Court, near 
Kensington, and the trees measured, at Cobbett’s request, in 1827; when 
it was found that the locust had grown faster than any one kind of 
the other trees in the proportion of 27 to 22, and faster than the average of 
them in the proportion of 27 to 18. (See Woodlands, §. 375., and Gard. 
Mag., vol. iii.p. 363.) This comparatively rapid growth of the locust, which 
is i a great measure confirmed by other measurements in Mr, Withers’s 
Treatise, is owing to the spreading roots of the tree having the power of 
more rapidly extracting nourishment from the soil than the descending roots 
of the other trees among which it was planted; but these other trees, 
with descending roots, though they grow slower than the locust at first, 
would, in the course of 30 or 40 years, overtop it, and ultimately destroy 
it altogether, as has been proved in the Bois de Boulogne near Paris. 
Geography. Yn North America, the locust tree, as it is there called, 
begins to grow naturally in Pennsylvania, between Lancaster and Harris- 
burgh, in the lat. of 40° 20’: west of the Alleghanies, it is found 2° or 
3° farther north; because, on the west side of these mountains, the climate 
is milder, and the soil more fertile than on the east of them. It is most abun- 
dant in the south-west, abounding in all the valleys between the chains of the 
Alleghany mountains, particularly in Limestone Valley. It is common in all 
the western states, between the Ohio, the Illinois, the lakes, and the Mis- 
sissippi. It is plentiful in Upper Canada, and also in Lower Canada; but it 
is not found in the states east of the river Delaware, nor does it grow spon- 
taneously in the maritime parts of the middle and southern states, to the dis- 
tance of from 50 to 100 miles from the sea. It is planted, however, in that 
region for purposes of both utility and ornament. It is observed by Mi- 
chaux, that the locust forms a much smaller proportion of the American 
forests than the oaks and walnuts, and that it is nowhere found occupying 
tracts, even of a few acres exclusively. Hence the tree, where it is met with, is 
frequently spared by settlers, as being ornamental, and comparatively rare; in 
the same manner as the black walnut is frequently spared for the same 
reasons, and for its fruit. Hence, also, old specimens of these two trees, 
which have belonged to the aboriginal forests, are frequently seen growing in 
the midst of cultivated fields. 
History. There is, perhaps, no American tree respecting which so much has 
been said and done, in Europe, as the locust. It was one of the first trees 
that we received from that country, and it has been more extensively 
propagated than any other, both in France and England. It has been al- 
ternately extolled and neglected in both countries; and even at the present 
time, though the beauty of its foliage and flowers is generally acknowledged, 
and though it has, at different periods, been enthusiastically praised by 
different writers, for the valuable properties of its wood, it cannot be con- 
sidered as holding a high rank as a timber tree, or as being generally planted 
with a view to profit. 
The seeds of this tree, it is statedin Martyn’s Miller and most other British 
works, and even in the Nouveau Du Hamel and Baudrillart’s Dictionnaire, 
were first sent to Europe to Jean Robin, gardener to Henry IV. of France, in 
1601; but, according to Deleuze, as quoted, p. 136., and also to Adanson, in 
the article Acacia, in the French Encyclopedia, the locust was sent from 
