CHAP. XLI. LEGUMINA ClivE. ROBi'n/^. 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. Francois 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 tres, 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 beaut}^ 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." (Gi/pin^s Forest Scene?-!/, 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 nurser}', after being 4 yeai's 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 3 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." (Ibid., § 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 



