CHAP. XLI. LEGUMINA CEZ. ROBI/NIA. 621 
being exposed to the air for 7 or 8 days to dry, they are taken home, and 
put in a barn or into a rick, between layers of straw, to which they commu- 
nicate their fragrance and sugary taste. When the shoots are to be eaten 
green, none are taken but those of the same season; because in them the 
prickles are herbaceous, and, consequently, do not injure the mouths of the 
animals. The roots of the locust are very sweet, and afford an extract which 
might supply the place of that obtained from liquorice roots; the entire 
plant is also said to afford a yellow dye. The flowers have been employed 
medicinally as antispasmodics, and to form an agreeable and refreshing syrup, 
which is drunk with water to quench thirst. M. Frangois says he never 
drank any thing to be compared to a liquor distilled from locust flowers in 
St. Domingo. These flowers, he adds, retain their perfume when dried; and 
those of a single tree are sufficient to give a scent resembling that of orange 
blossoms to a whole garden. 
As an ornamental tree, when full-grown, according to Gilpin, the acacia is 
an elegant, and often a very beautiful, object ; whether it feathers to the ground, 
as it sometimes does, or is adorned with a light foliage hanging from the 
shoots: but its beauty, he adds, is frail; and “it is of all trees the least 
able to endure the blast. In some sheltered spot, it may ornament a garden ; 
but it is by no means qualified to adorn a country. Its wood is of so brittle 
a texture, especially when it is encumbered with a weight of foliage, that you 
can never depend upon its aid in filling up the part you wish, The branch 
you admire to-day may be demolished to-morrow. The misfortune is, the 
acacia is not one of those grand objects, like the oak, whose dignity is often 
increased by ruin. It depends on its beauty, rather than on its grandeur, 
which is a quality more liable to injury. I may add, however, in its favour, 
that, if it be easily injured, it repairs the injury more quickly than any other 
tree. Few trees make so rapid a growth.” (Gilpin’s Forest Scenery, i. p. 72.) 
On the whole, it would appear, that, in Britain, the locust is only calculated 
for favourable climates and good soils ; and that, when grown in these with a 
view to profit as timber, it should be cut down at the end of 30 or 40 years. 
Perhaps it may prove more profitable as a copse wood, for producing fencing 
stuff, or fuel: but, even for these purposes, we feel confident that it cannot 
be grown for many years together, with advantage, on the same soil. We do 
not think it at all suitable for hop-poles ; because, even when crowded together 
in nursery lines, it cannot be got to grow straight, and it almost always loses 
its main shoot: besides, if it did grow straight, there is no evidence to prove 
that stakes made from young locust trees, and used for hop-poles, are more 
durable than stakes of the ash, chestnut, or any other tree. It is worthy of 
notice, that Cobbett, apparently without ever having seen a hop-pole made of 
locust, boldly affirms that the tree is admirably adapted for that purpose ; 
that trees from his nursery, after being 4 years planted on Lord Radnor’s 
estate at Coleshill, were “ fit for hop-poles, that will last in that capacity for 
20 or 30 years at the least”? (Woodlands, § 380.); that such poles are worth 
a shilling each (that is, nearly double what was at that time the price of good 
ash hop-poles); that 5 acres would thus, in 5 years, produce 529/.; and that 
each stump, left after the pole was cut down, would send up 2 or 3 poles 
for the next crop; which, being cut down in their turn, at the end of 
another 5 years, would, of course, produce two or three times the above 
sum”! (§ 382.); that locust wood is “ absolutely indestructible by the 
powers of earth, air, and water; and that “no man in America will pre- 
tend to say that he ever saw a bit of it in a decayed state.” (Zéid., § 328.) 
After this, it will not be wondered at that Cobbett should call the locust “ the 
tree of trees,” and that he should eulogise it in the following passage, which 
is so characteristic of the man, and so well exemplifies the kind of quackery in 
which he dealt, that we quote it entire: —“ The time will come,” he observes, 
“ and it will not be very distant, when the locust tree will be more common in 
England than the oak ; when a man would be thought mad if he used anything 
but locust in the making of sills, posts, gates, joists, feet for rick-stands, stocks 
