420 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 
In hanging gates, with screw eyes for strap hinges, we have often bored 
locust posts to receive the screw eyes. The screw form of spikes may be used 
instead of the present method of driving spikes. Still, this requires previous bor- 
ing and occupies far greater time than to drive the spikes, in other wood. 
There is much land which is rough, steep, rocky, mountainous, which will 
produce black locust better than almost any other trees. 
The demand for locust posts will always be great, and the waste can be used 
for fuel. Hence it is a good investment to plant such tracts with locust, but as 
a railway investment, for the purpose of securing cross-ties, it will be a doubtful 
experiment. 
There are many places where the locust is more desirable for forest planting 
than a majority of other trees. On clay soil, among rocks and gravel, and on 
poor lands which will not maintain a good growth of timber, the locust will often 
succeed while failure would result from planting better timber. 
Every farm should have a part of the rough land in some kind of post timber. 
The borers sometimes destroy entire groves, but as it gains in root power and 
vigor it overcomes these attacks. 
The beauty and fragrance of the locust blossoms are well known. Good, 
rich land may be more profitably employed by planting walnut, oak, catalpa and 
trees which are valuable as lumber, cross-ties, etc., for which the locust is not 
suited. 
In time of wooden block pavements, this wood was largely used, but round 
paving blocks have been quite unsatisfactory, except in Chicago, where they give 
employment to many in their frequent renewals and supply of fuel in time of coal 
famine. 
Wagon hubs are sometimes made of locust, and on the sea coast it is utilized 
for knees and other boat timbers, belaying pins, etc. Telegraph companies use it 
for pins, for insulator supports on cross-arms, for which there is an increasing de- 
mand. The durability and strength of the wood make it specially valuable for this 
purpose. 
For country telephone lines where extreme length and straightness are not 
required, the young poles are useful. 
The locust does not increase in value rapidly after it has attained a diameter 
of twelve inches, when it should be cut and new growths permitted. 
Our. illustration is a grove of locust in Springville, Utah. The growth of the 
locust under irrigation, with hot, dry atmosphere, is very good. The bark has a 
character quite different from that in the East, being more roughly furrowed. 
The value of the locust for rough lands, unprofitable for cultivation, can scarcely 
be overestimated, since our farm fences must be maintained in all parts of 
America. 
GROWTH OF BLACK LOCUST. 
We have referred to the peculiarity of the locust in its mode of growing in 
folds, thus preventing it from being sawed into lumber. We present a figure of a 
cross section of a locust tree from drawing made with accuracy. This tree, as de- 
termined by annual circles and also from historic record, was fifty years old, and 
