The Locust. 



having been preferred against them from the first to the 

 last. Nevertheless^ I did not forget my country, and the 

 duty I still owed to her. I was convinced that nothing in 

 the timber way could be so great a benefit as the general 

 cultivation of this tree. Thus thinking, I brought a parcel 

 of this seed home with me in 1819, but I had no means of 

 sowing it until the year 1823. T then began sowing it, but 

 upon a very small scale. I sold the plants; and, since that 

 time, I have sold altogether more than a million of them. 



327. In other places I have said quite enough upon the 

 properties of the wood, upon the uses for which it serves, 

 upon the quickness of the growth of the tree, and also upon 

 the manner of planting it. All that I have said before 

 must, however, be repeated here ; for, besides that new 

 readers are every day rising up, this is the book, this is the 

 part of my labours, where every one who cares anything 

 about them will look for what 1 have to say relative to this 

 tree ; for the manner of collecting and preserving the seeds 

 of which, and also of the manner of sowing which seed, I 

 have no where, as yet, given a full and detailed account ; 

 and yet it is very material to give that account. I shall, 

 therefore, first repeat what I have said before, on the pro- 

 perties of the wood; then on the quickness of the growth of 

 the tree ; and then I shall lay down the plainest possible 

 directions for the sowing of the seed, and for the managing 

 of the young plants. 



328. The wood is very hard, and close and heavy ; it is 

 yellow, almost as box; as hard as box, but the grain not so 

 fine. The durahU'iiy of this wood is such, that no man in 

 America will pretend to say that he ever saw a hit of it in a 

 decayed state. This seems hyperbolical ; but every Ameri- 

 can of experience in country affairs will, if appealed to, 



