THE LOCUSTS 181 



freezes, and thaws them, and thus the range of the honey 

 locust is extended. 



In the wild, this tree is found from Ontario to Nebraska, 

 and south to Alabama and Texas. It chooses rich bottom 

 lands, but is found also on dry gravelly slopes of the 

 Alleghany Mountains. Trunks six feet in diameter are 

 still in existence, preserved from the early forests of the 

 Wabash Basin in Indiana. They tower nearly one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet above the ground, and their branches 

 are a formidable array of thorns (see illustration, page 198), 

 that have grown into proportions unmatched in trees of 

 slender build and fewer years. Such a veteran honey 

 locust is one of the most picturesque figures in a winter 

 landscape. 



Honey locust wood is hard, coarse-grained, heavy, and 

 durable in contact with water and soil. It is made into 

 wheel-hubs, fence-posts, and fuel. In all temperate 

 countries this species has been used as a shade and orna- 

 mental tree and as a hedge plant. 



The Kentucky Coffee Tree 



Gymnocladus dioicus, K. Koch 



The Kentucky coffee tree is the one clumsy, coarse mem- 

 ber of a family that abounds in graceful, dainty species. 

 Its head is small and unsymmetrical, above a trunk that 

 often rises free from limbs for fifty feet above ground. The 

 branches are stiff and large, bare until late spring, when the 

 buds expand and the shoots are tlu-own out. The leaves 

 are twice compound, often a yard in length and half as 

 wide; the leaflets, six to fourteen on each of the five to nine 

 divisions of the main rib. No other locust can boast a leaf 



