70 
LOCUST. 
tion, so that it is easily broken by the wind. This inconvenience is 
already so serious as to induce many people to forego all attempts to form 
plantations of Locust. In Virginia, I have not learned that trees of the 
natural growth have been visited by this destroyer, but those that have 
been reared about the plantations have already felt its ravages. This evil, 
which it appears difficult to remedy, will be more sensibly felt when the 
destruction of the forests now on foot, an inevitable consequence of the 
increase of population and of the neglect of all measures of preservation, 
shall force the inhabitants to have recourse to plantations, which they 
will wish to form in a certain proportion of the Locust. Hence it may 
result that, disappearing successively from the American forests by constant 
consumption, and not being reproduced on account of this insect, the 
Locusts will become extremely rare in their native country, and abundant 
in Europe, where no similar catastrophe forbids their propagation.* 
Though I have asserted that I have seen Locusts in America 70 or 80 
feet high, it must be observed that this luxuriant growth is confined to the 
most fertile districts of Kentucky and West Tennessee, where the newly 
cleared lands yield for several years in succession, without manure, from 
30 to 60 bushels of Maize or Indian corn, to the acre. In general, this tree 
does not exceed 40 or 45 feet in height on lands of middling quality, that 
produce the Oaks and the Hickories, compared with which the Locust is 
a tree only of secondary size, affording timber of inconsiderable dimensions. 
For this reason it should not be substituted for the Oak, the Beech, the 
Chesnut and the Elm, in soils where these species already flourish. 
In Europe, the greatest share of attention has been bestowed upon the 
Locust, and the most extended observations have been published on its 
culture in countries lying north of the 48° of latitude : but notwithstanding 
the success which is said to have been obtained in cultivating it, I cannot 
think that this is its proper climate. I have observed, as well as many 
other persons, that its vegetation is accelerated by the warmth of a more 
southern sun : the effect is visible even at Orleans, where, though the 
difference of latitude is only one degree, the Locusts are larger than in the 
* [The following important information is taken from Emerson’s “ Trees and Shrubs of 
Massachusetts, p. 463 : 
“The practice of planting this tree by road-sides, and along the enclosures of pasture lands, 
has much increased of late years, but has been checked by the fact that, in such situations, it 
is exposed to the inroads of an insect, whose worm penetrates to the heart of the tree, and 
destroys its life. An unexpected remedy has, however, been suggested by the success of Joseph 
Cogswell, Esq., in the cultivation, some years ago, of a large plantation of the Locust. He 
found that when it forms a wood, those trees only are attacked by the worm, which form the 
outskirts, exposed to the sun and free air. Whether it is that the insect parent of the worm 
delights, as many do, in the sunlight, and avoids the shade of the woods, or from whatever 
cause, it was found that all the interior of the plantation was free from its attacks.” 
The great destruction by thoughtless sportsmen of the Woodpeckers, is probably the reason 
why the Locusts are now infested with worms more than formerly.] 
