542 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



attempt it. All trees, however, are not formidably thorned ; some have 

 few, and certain varieties have none. 



The honey locust is sometimes called the Confederate pin tree in 

 the South. This is a reference to the Civil war, and the use occasionally 

 made of the thorns by soldiers in mending the rents in their torn uni- 

 forms. The thorns were once put to a somewhat similar use among the 

 Alleghany mountains where local factories for carding and spinning 

 country wool employed them to pin up the mouths of wool sacks. 



The natural range of honey locust has been greatly extended by 

 man. It was not originally found east of the Alleghany mountains. 

 It grew from western Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Mississippi, 

 and westward to Nebraska and Texas. It is now naturalized east of the 

 Alleghanies, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Planting for orna- 

 mental purposes and for hedges has been the cause of its extension into 

 new territory. In spite of thorns, it is ornamental. Its foliage is thin, 

 and its flowers inconspicuous, but the tree possesses a grace which wins 

 it favor. It grows very rapidly, and in a short time a seedling becomes a 

 respectable tree, and continues its rapid growth a long time. In 

 southern Indiana and Illinois, which is the best part of its range, trees 

 have attained a height of 140 feet and a diameter of six. The average 

 size of forest-grown specimens is seventy-five feet hi height, and two or 

 more in diameter. 



The leaves are seven or eight inches long, doubly compound; the 

 fruit a pod a foot or more in length, which assumes a twist when ripe, 

 or sometimes warps several ways. The green pod contains a sweet 

 substance often eaten by children, but it is believed to be of little value 

 for human food. Cattle devour the pods when in the sugary condition ; 

 but they cannot often obtain them, because thorns intervene, when the 

 pods would otherwise be in reach. In rural districts, a domestic beer is 

 brewed from the young fruit. The juice extracted from it is per- 

 mitted to ferment, but the beverage is probably never sold in the market. 



The pods are in no hurry to let go and fall, even after they are fully 

 ripe. They become dry, distort themselves with a number of corkscrew 

 twists, and hang until late fall or early winter, rattling in the wind and 

 occasionally shaking out a seed or two. 



Honey locust has never been considered important from the 

 lumberman's standpoint. Sawlogs go to mills here and there, but never 

 many in one place. The wood is not listed under its own name, but is 

 put in with something else. Occasionally, it is said, it passes as syca- 

 more in the furniture factory, though the difference ought not be 

 difficult to detect. It doubtless depends to a considerable degree on the 

 particular wood, for all honey locust does not look alike when converted 



