LOCUST. 
69 
$10 a thousand. From fifty to a hundred thousand of these pins are annu- 
ally exported to England. 
In the construction of houses, even of such as are wholly of wood the 
Locust is not extensively employed in the countries where it is most multi- 
plied : the use to which it is more particularly applied is to support the 
sills or the beams on which the; frame reposes. These sills are of Oak, and 
if they were placed immediately on the ground, they would decay more 
rapidly than the Locust. This invaluable property of durability, which is 
possessed by the Locust in a degree far superior to that of any other tree 
except the Red Mulberry, sufficiently indicates the purposes to which it 
may be advantageously applied : but in the United States its use is limited 
to the objects which I have enumerated, and it is through mistake that it 
has been said to be employed for staves and hoops, and for forming 
hedges. 
From the hardness of the Locust wood when seasoned, and the fineness of 
its grain and its lustre when polished, it has been, for several years, exten- 
sively substituted by turners for the Box in many species of light work, 
such as salt-cellars, sugar-bowls, candlesticks, spoons and forks for salad, 
boxes, and many other trifling objects which are carefully wrought into 
pleasing shapes, and are sold at low prices. 
The rapid growth of the Locust was early remarked by the inhabitants 
of the United States; for this is an inestimable quality in a tree whose 
wood unites so many excellencies. This consideration has induced many 
persons to plant it in those parts of the country where it does not naturally 
grow, particularly in the lower part of the States lying east of the river 
Delaware. Thus between New York and Boston, a distance of nearly 300 
miles, it is seen at intervals growing before the farm-houses, and sometimes 
by the side of fences : but perhaps not one proprietor in a hundred has 
adopted this useful measure. On Long Island, near the west end of which 
lies the city of New York, the forests were in a great measure destroyed in 
the war of Independence, and many persons have successfully adopted the 
culivation of the Locust on an extensive scale ; but these plantations are 
still very much circumscribed, and, except the larger trees which are cut 
into tree-nails, and which serve to supply in part the demand of the ship- 
wrights of New York, the whole growth is consumed by the cultivators. 
Regular plantations of Locust, of 20 or 30 acres, have not been formed in 
any part of the United States, though several agricultural societies have 
offered premiums for their encouragement. 
Within eighteen or twenty years an obstacle has unhappily appeared, 
which will contribute greatly to prevent the multiplication of the Locust 
in all the anciently settled parts of the United States : this is a winged 
insect which attacks the living tree, penetrates through the bark into the 
centre of the trunk, and, for the space of a foot, mines it in every direc- 
Vol. IL— 10 
