88 TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 
and ornamental purposes are the chief inducements to 
cultivate this species. 
THE BLACK OR COMMON LOCUST. 
The common locust is indigenous to the country west 
of the Alleghanies as far as Arkansas; and without the 
maritime parts, to the distance of forty to ninety miles, it 
is planted for purposes of utility and ornament from 
Maine to Georgia, and often attains a height of eighty 
or ninety feet and a diameter sometimes exceeding four 
feet ; but under ordinary instances, or in its wild state, 
it does not ordinarily exceed half these dimensions. 
It is valued for the properties of its wood and the 
beauty of its foliage and flowers. When young its 
branches tend upward, but as the tree increases in age 
they become more horizontal. The bark of its trunk 
and principal branches is very thick and deeply fur- 
rowed,and in young trees is studded with strong hooked 
prickles, which disappear as the tree grows old. This 
tree bears a very agreeable foliage, each leaf being 
composed of opposite leaflets from eight to twelve in 
number. It is particularly adapted for planting along 
roadsides and in the neighborhood of cities and towns, 
and would be very effective for park purposes. It pro- 
duces a perfectly white, sometimes yellowish, flower, 
disposed in pendulous bunches from three to five inches 
long, from which is diffused an agreeable odor. 
The common locust varies considerably in its native lo- 
calities, and numerous varieties have been produced from 
seed, the foliages of which are distinct when the plants 
are young ; so we may regard the several varieties, com- 
monly treated as species, as the result of soil and climate. 
Its growth in favorable soils is fairly rapid, and the dura- 
ble properties of the wood fit it for posts, fencings, axle- 
trees of timber-wagons, and for many other useful pur- 
poses where exposure to weather is necessitated. 
