THE LOCUST TREE. 
M7 
what belongs to the hour of labour, and which may allude to its 
closing its leaflets together at night, and expanding them by 
day.” Common local names are Golden Chain, suggested by 
the strings of flowers, and Bean-trefoile and Pea-tree, having 
reference to the leaves and legumes respectively. 
The Locust Tree {Robinla pscudacacia). 
Although the Locust, or False Acacia, is little planted now, 
it is only paying the penalty for having had its merits enormously 
exaggerated ; just as human reputations sometimes sink into 
oblivion after a season of popularity achieved by the persistent 
“ booming ” of influential friends. The friend in this case was 
William Cobbett, who, on his return from the United States, 
about 1820, preached salvation to the timber grower through 
the planting of Robinia : “ nothing in the timber way could be 
so great a benefit as the general cultivation of this tree.” So 
great was the demand thus created that Cobbett himself started 
a nursery for the propagation and supply of Robinias, and so 
great is the virtue of a name that people refused the Locust- 
trees that every nurseryman had in stock and wished to sell, 
and would be content with nothing but Cobbett’s Robinias, 
which could not be produced fast enough for the demand ! 
They thought it was an entirely new introduction, though it 
had been grown in this country as an ornamental tree for nearly 
two centuries ! Its wood is hard, strong, and durable, but liable 
to crack, and of limited utility. 
The Locust was introduced to Europe from North America 
early in the seventeenth century, and was then thought to be 
identical with the African Acacia. Linn$us named the genus 
in honour of Jean Robin, a French botanist, whose son, an 
official at the Jardin des Plantes, was the first to cultivate the 
tree in Europe. 
It is a tree of light and graceful proportions, its branches 
