280 



The Locust. 



Vol. XII. 



eo]d altogether more than a million of them !" 

 Elsewhere, in the same work, he more espe 

 cially directed attention to this subject, vng 

 '\ng, in his clear and forcible manner, the 

 immense importance of this tree in ship- 

 building; and he was the means of thousands 

 of it being planted in various parts of Bri 

 tain. The name of locust, as applied to this 

 tree, before Cobbett's time, was but little 

 known in England, and many persons, in 

 consequence, thought it was a new tree. 

 Cobbett had a large kitchen-garden behind 

 his house at Kensington, which he converted 

 into a nursery; and he also grew trees ex- 

 tensively on his farm at Barnes, in Surry. 

 Although hundreds of the Robinia pseuda- 

 cacia stood unasked for in the British nurse- 

 ries, the " locust plants," which every one 

 believed could only be had genuine from Mr. 

 Cobbett, could not be grown by him in suffi- 

 cient quantities to supply the demand. He 

 imported the seeds in tons; but when he fell 

 short of the real American ones, he procured 

 others, as well as young plants, from the 

 London nurseries, and passed them off as his 

 own raising or importation. Had the people 

 of England known that locust seeds and lo- 

 cust plants were so easily to be obtained, it 

 is probable that the locust mania would ne- 

 ver have attained the height it did. To show 

 the folly or the knavery of this extraordi- 

 nary individual, we quote the following from 

 Loudon's " Arboretum Britannicum," which 

 should be preserved more as a literary cu 

 riosity rather than a historical record. " It ii 

 worthy of notice," says Loudon, "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 four 

 years planted on Lord Radnor's estate, at 

 Coleshill, were ' fit for hop-poles, that will 

 last in that capacity for twenty or thirty 

 years at least;' that ' such poles are worth a 

 chilling each' (that is, nearly double what 

 was at that time the price of good ash hop- 

 poles) ; that 'five acres would thus, in five 

 years, produce £529 ;' and that ' each stump, 

 left after the pole was cut down, would send 

 up two or three poles for the next crop, 

 which, being cut down in their turn, at the 

 end of another five years, would, of course, 

 produce two or three times the above sum !' 

 that locust wood is 'absolutely indestructible 

 by tiie powers of earth, air, and water;' and 

 that 'no man in America will pretend to say 

 that he ever saw a bit of it in a decayed 

 state.' After this, it will not be wondered 

 at, that Cobbett should call the locust 'the| 

 tree of trees,' and that he should eulogize it 

 in the following passage, which is so charac- 

 teristic 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 lo- 

 cust in the making of sills, posts, gates, joists, 

 feet for rick-stands, stocks and axletrees for 

 wheels, hop-poles, pales, or for anythino- 

 where there is liability to rot. This time 

 will not be distant, seeing that the locust 

 grows so fast. The next race of children 

 but one, that is to say, those who will be born 

 sixty years hence, will think that the locust 

 trees have always been the most numerous 

 trees in England ; and some curious writer 

 of a century or two hence, will tell his read- 

 ers that, wonderful as it may seem, 'the lo- 

 cust was introduced to a knowledge of it by 

 William Cobbett.' ' What he will say of me 

 bet-ides, I do not know ; but 1 know that he 

 will say this of me. I enter upon this ac- 

 count, therefore, knowing that I am writing 

 for centuries and centuries to come.' The 

 absurdity of the above passage renders it 

 almost unworthy of comment; but we may 

 remark that, even supposing all that Cobbett 

 says in it of the application of the locust 

 were true, the uses which he has enumerated 

 do not amount to a hundredth part of those 

 to which timber is applied in this country. 

 Hence, were his predictions to be verified, 

 and were the locust to become more preva- 

 lent than the oak, we should find its wood a 

 miserable substitute, in the construction of 

 ships and houses, for that of our ordinary 

 timber trees. Every experienced planter or 

 timber owner, both in Europe and America, 

 has felt this ; and this is the true reason why 

 the tree never has been, and never will be, 

 extensively planted." 



The largest tree of this species recorded 

 in England, is at Syon, near London, which 

 in 1836 had attaiiied the height of eighty- 

 one feet, with a trunk three feet four inches 

 in diameter at one foot above the ground, 

 and an ambitus, or spread of branches, of 

 fifty-seven feet. 



In Scotland, at Airthrey Castle, in Stir- 

 lingshire, there is a locust tree, which attain- 

 ed the height of sixty-two feet in forty-three 

 years after planting, with a trunk of two 

 feet in diameter, and an ambitus of thirty 

 feet. It grows in light loam or grave], and 

 in a sheltered situation. 



In Ireland, at Shelton Abbey, in Wicklow, 

 there is a locust which attained the height 

 of sixty-five feet in fitly years af\er plantinor^ 

 with a trunk twenty-five inches in diameter. 



In America the locust has been planted 

 for ornament in great abundance about farm- 

 houses, and along fences and avenues, for 



