THE ACACIA. 



235 



Mr. Harrison's efforts have been at length suc- 

 cessful ; the American shipwrights^ Loudon tells 

 us, now use as much Locust-wood as they can 

 procure, finding it as durable as the Live Oak, 

 and the Red Cedar, with the advantage of being 

 stronger than the former and lighter than the 

 latter. It is difiicult, however, to procure trees 

 of sufiicient size for ship-building; for even, in 

 those districts where the tree thrives best, nine- 

 tenths of the trunks do not exceed one foot in 

 diameter, and from thirty to forty feet in height. 

 The wood is used for trenails in all the sea-ports 

 of the Middle States, to the exclusion of every 

 other kind of timber. Instead of decaying, it 

 acquires an extraordinary degree of hardness with 

 time. In 1819, from 50,000 to 100,000 tre- 

 nails of this wood were exported to England, 

 and their excellence has been confirmed by the 

 highest authorities, so that Oak-wood grown in 

 Sussex, which was formerly considered the best 

 for this purpose, is now only partially used. 

 Locust trenails being still imported from America 

 to a very great extent. 



It may seem strange that the timber of a tree 

 so liable to be broken by the wind, as we find 

 the Acacia to be, should be considered the very 

 best for a purpose where extraordinary strength 

 is required ; but it must be remembered that the 

 Acacia, in its native country, prefers barren, 

 sandy, or light soils, in which situations it matures 

 its timber slowly. With us, on the other hand, 

 it is usually planted in rich soils and sheltered 

 situations, where, though the tree is botanically 

 the same, the character of the timber is materially 

 impaired. 



