PEA FAMILY 
rapidity at first may retard the growth later; fo, 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, 
Raceme of Locust Blossoms, 
‘Robinia pseudacacia. 
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 
tog 
