"vegetables. 



257 



from overrunning the land, and whenever suffered to 

 indulge their native luxuriance, they will soon con- 

 vert a piece of cleared land into a forest. 



Citizen Francois de Neufchateau, member of the 

 Conservative Senate, and of the National Institute, 

 has lately published a treatise at Paris, in the form 

 of a letter, on this tree. He observes, that it was 

 brought from America by Jean Robin, curator of the 

 king's garden, about the year 1620. It was quickly 

 perceived that, in the course of ten or twelve years, 

 it would, in very barren land, reach the size of an 

 oak of thirty or forty years standing*; but it appears 

 that the advantage which it presented of putting 

 forth flowers of an agreeable scent, has hitherto con- 

 demned it to be only a tree for show. This has been 

 always the language of the different societies of agri- 

 culture, of the ministerial instructions, French and 

 foreign treatises of gardening, 6cc. &c. In the space 

 of ten years, however, says citizen de Neufchateau, a 

 number of rcbiniers, planted in the quincunx form, 

 at the distance of two meters from one another, and 

 valued at not more than six francs, had a cutting 

 or selhng worth about 36,000 francs the hectare (a 

 space little more than two acres) ; and, in the course 

 of the last ten years, has had three prunings or top- 

 pings of very consideraale value. The same trees, 

 planted in the form of hedges, and cropped every 

 third year, form an impenetrable inciosure, with a 

 very valuable produce. | Notwithstanding this, it re- 

 quires only a slight and meagre soil. 



In the United States, particularly near Philadel- 

 phia various attempts have been made to plant 

 hedges with the robinia, but it has been found that 



