The Locust. 



351. I, like all other planters, was in haste. The naked- 

 ness of my house called for shelter. I hought large trees, 

 carried them to Botley at great expense, planted them; 

 hut, by degrees, I pulled them all up, and flung them away, 

 except a row of them, placed against a dead wall, merely 

 as a screen. The plantation is, all taken together, the most 

 beautiful that I ever saw. It consists, in part, of my LO- 

 CUST TREES, planted in the three years before mention- 

 ed ; and of these I am now going to give an account. This 

 account will be read hundreds of years hence. The time 

 will come (and it will not be very distant) when the Locust- 

 tree will be more common in England than the Oak ; when a 

 man would be thought mad, if he used anything but Locust 

 in the making of sills, posts, gates, joists, feet for rick-stands, 

 stocks and axletrees for ivheels, hop-poles, pales, or for any- 

 thing where there is liability to rot. This time will not be 

 distant, seeing that the Locust grows so fast. The next 

 race of children but one; that is to say, those w^ho will be 

 born sixty years hence, will think that Locust-trees have 

 always been the most numerous trees in England ; and some 

 curious writer of a century or two hence, will tell his read- 

 ers that, wonderfid as it may seem, " the Locust was hardly 

 " known in England until about the year 1823, when the 



nation was introduced to a knowledge of it by William 

 " CoBBETT." What he will say of me besides, I do not 

 know; but I know that he will say this of me. I enter 

 upon this account, therefore, knowing that I am writing 

 for centuries and centuries to come. 



352. In 1806, I imported several kinds of forest-seeds 

 from the North American States, in which I had resided 

 from 1/92 to 1800. Of Locusts I sowed but little seed. It 

 was sown in the spring of 1806, and TWO of the plants 

 were planted out in April, 1807 



