286 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 
with other leguminous plants, bacteroids, which reside in a 
symbiotic state in tubercles on its roots, are able in some myste- 
rious way to accumulate nitrogen. The litter, which is rich 
but thin, quickly decays. Once established, the locust hurst 
will never need renewal; hundreds of stool-shoots and root- 
suckers are present to take the places of felled trees on the 
admission of light. Besides a tap-root the locust has an exten- 
sive horizontal. root system by which the soil is held in place. 
It is for this reason used on railroad embankments and dry soils 
subject to shifting. The wood is useful for posts and other pur- 
poses, even when young, and is therefore of great value for 
private planting. Both red cedar and black locust may be sown 
in the same way that I have indicated for the pine. The seeds 
of the locust, if planted in the spring, should be soaked in warm 
water for three days before planting. 
The white-cedar (Chamecyparis thyoides) is the choicest of 
the soft woods of Eastern America. Not even inferior to the 
famous pumpkin-white-pine. In fact, for boat and tank con- 
struction it has no equal. The wood is light, soft, clean, easily 
seasoned, and remarkable for its durability.* It neither warps 
nor checks under the most trying circumstances. It is exten- 
sively used for bridge-plank, shingles, weather-boards, interior 
finish, and in the construction of fences either in the form of 
rails or palings. It has a pleasant cedary aroma, and when 
expose:l to the weather becomes a beautiful steel or lichen-gray 
color. 
The white-cedar should be grown in the form of a pure 
crowded wood, on wet mucky or wet sandy soil. The canopy 
should be uninterrupted, and the lower limbs should interlace. 
If the forest is too thin, irregular, with all age classes and here 
and there other species, the trees are easily uprooted by the 
wind, owing to the slight hold which they have upon the soft 
mucky soil. "The stand should be so thick and the lower limbs 
interlace to such an extent that the tree will free itself from 
branches, produce clean boles and prevent the growth of under- 
brush. Owing to its sharp, conical top it endures close plant- 
* The bark of the white-cedar is tough and fibrous and similar to coir in nature. Many trees of this 
species in South Jersey have been ruined by the fishermen, who use strips of the tough bark on which to 
string their fish. In Russia the manufacture of mats, rope, etc., from bark is an important industry, and 
in New Jersey the white-cedar bark might be used for similar purposes. 
