146 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



extremely liable to the attacks of the borer, which renders 

 its wood in a great measure valueless. In particularly fa- 

 vourable situations, its culture may be made extremely prof- 

 itable.* 



There are but two distinct species of locust which attain 

 the size of trees in this country, viz: the Yellow locust, {R. 

 Pseud-acacia,) so called from the colour of its wood ; and the 

 Honey locust, [R. viscosa,) a smaller tree, with reddish flow- 

 ers, and branches covered with a viscid, honey-like gum. 

 Some pretty varieties of the former have been originated in 

 gardens abroad, among which the Parasol locust, [var. um- 

 hraculifera,) is decidedly the most interesting. We recollect 

 some handsome specimens which were imported by the late 

 M. Parmentier, and grew in his garden at Brooklyn, Long 

 Island. They were remarkable for their unique, rounded, 

 umbrella-like heads, when grafted ten or twelve feet high on 

 the common locust. 



The sorts called the White and Black locusts, from the 

 colour of the wood, are mere varieties of the Yellow locust, 

 much less valuable for timber than that species, and of no ac- 

 count in ornamental plantations. 



The Three-thorned Acacia Tree. Gleditschia. 



Nat. Ord. Leguminosae. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Dicecia. 



This tree is often called the Three-thorned locust, from 

 some resemblance to the latter tree. Its delicate, doubly pin- 



* There is a well known instance of the profit of this tree, which we perceive 

 has found its way into the memoirs of the Agricultural Society of Paris. A 

 farmer on Long Island, some sixty years ago, on the year of his marriage, 

 planted fourteen acres of his farm with the Yellow locust. When his eldest son 

 married at twenty-two, he cut twelve hundred dollars worth of timber from the 

 field, as a marriage portion, which he gave his son to buy a settlement in Lan- 

 caster County, Pennsylvania, then considered a part of the " western country." 

 Three years after, the locust grove yielded as much for a daughter; and in this 

 way his whole family were provided for ; as the rapidity with which the young 

 suckers grew up, fully repaired the breaches made in the fourteen acres. 



