398 THE LOCUST TREE, 
excite the belief that as a timber tree it would outgrow every 
sort. 
Perhaps there is no other foreign tree that has had its pro- 
perties and uses so enthusiastically recommended to the 
notice of planters. It is one of the first introduced American 
trees into Britain, and it has been eulogized in various coun- 
tries and at different periods; in this country, under the dif- 
ferent names of “ Robinia,” “ Acacia,’ “the Locust Tree.” 
But by far the greatest impulse was given to its cultivation 
by Cobbett, who, between the years 1820 and 1825, imported 
large quantities of seeds, and grew immense numbers of 
plants, which he sold under the name of locust-tree, the 
popular name in its native districts in America, but then 
hardly known in this country to be the Robinia, or pseud-Acacia. 
Many therefore believed the locust to be a newly-introduced 
tree, while Cobbett, in his Woodlands, and other publications, 
extolled it as far superior to any other, both for rapidity of 
growth and durability of timber. Of its timber he says, “ it 
is absolutely indestructible by the power of earth, air, and 
water.” He also states that “the time will come, and it will 
not be very distant, when the locust-tree will be more common 
in England than the oak; when a man would be thought 
mad if he used anything but locust in the making of sills, 
posts, gates, joists, feet for rick-stands, stocks and axle-trees 
for wheels, hop-poles, pails, and for anything where there is 
liability to rot. This time will not be distant, seeing that the 
locust grows so fast. The next race of children but one, that 
is to say, those who will be born sixty years hence, will think 
the locust trees have always been the most numerous trees in 
England, and some curious writer of a century or two hence 
will tell his readers that, wonderful as it may seem, the locust 
was hardly known in England until about the year 1823, 
when the nation was introduced to a knowledge of it by 
William Cobbett.” These and similar statements of this 
writer created a sensation throughout the country, and 
for a few years the tree was planted to an unprecedented 
extent ; but at the present time we do not know any district 
