PEA FAMILY 



rapidity at first may retard the growth later ; for unless 

 these spreading roots are allowed ample space on every side 

 they soon exhaust the soil within 

 reach. On the other hand trees 

 whose roots penetrate deep as well 

 as wide grow more slowly and also, 

 more steadily, and other things be- 

 ing equal attain the larger size. 



A single Locust, given a free hand 

 and good soil, will soon produce a 

 thicket; for the roots creeping along 

 the upper layers of the soil send up 

 numerous shoots which quickly set 

 up in life for themselves. The fo- 

 liage effect of such a thicket is most 

 beautiful. The leaves are compound 

 with delicate, dark green leaflets. 

 New leaves are put forth until past 

 midsummer and these being a light 

 yellow green stand out against the 

 dark background of the older leaves, 

 giving the color effect of a mass of 

 soft velvety greens of varied values. 

 Then, too, the leaves respond to a light breeze so quickly, 

 the leaf surface is so smooth, the leaf texture so fine, that 

 the tree is always clean even in dusty places. 



Loudon reports that a plantation of locusts, Scotch pines, 

 sycamores, limes, chestnuts, beeches, ashes, and oaks was 

 made near Kensington, London, in 1812 and that the trees 

 were measured in 1827, when it was found that the locust had 

 grown faster than any one kind of the other trees in the 

 proportion of 27 to 22, and faster than the average of them 

 in the proportion of 27 to 18. But this was a case where 

 the race was not to the swift, for at the end of forty years 

 the locusts had been over-topped and ultimately they were 

 destroyed by the other trees. 



All the beauty of the Locust comes when it is in leaf ; the 



100 



Raceme of Locust Blossoms, 

 l^pbima pseudacacta. 



