THE LOCUSTS AND OTHER BEARERS When you find a tree with flat pods, contain ing a row of seeds, you may be sure it is a locust, or one of the family to which locusts belong. It is a near relative of the peas and beans that grow in the vegetable garden. This is a great and valuable family to the human race, for it furnishes some of the most valuable foods upon which the people of all countries live. Only one family, the grasses, is more important. This in cludes not only grasses that are used for making hay, but all the grains—wheat, barley, rice, oats, and corn, that make the bread of the world, and forage crops for horses and cattle. The banana and sugar cane and bamboos are in this wonder ful grass family.
Along the roadsides, along rivers, and in the woods grow the black or yellow locusts that bloom in June, covering their ugly limbs with a cataract of white, pea-like blossoms, in large clus ters. All summer the slim, thin pods are velvety and green, with a lovely flush of rose, as they swing among the feathery, fern-like leaves. In autumn the pods turn brown, and in winter, when the wind can switch them against the bare twigs, they split, and one by one, the hard little seeds are shaken out. They are too heavy to be car ried in the wind. So we see little locusts coming up among the old ones, and on the outer edges of the clump.
No tree is so discouraged-looking, unkempt, and diseased as a black locust infested with the borers, and stripped of the foliage that covered its thin, irregular limbs in the summer time. The buds, even, are hidden, and the tree looks as if life had left it. But the late spring denies the rumour by clothing the dead-looking twigs with foliage whose tender shadings and delicate leaf forms make it one of the most graceful and lovely of all native trees.
Unfortunately, we cannot have locusts of this species in this Eastern country without exposing them to the attacks of insects against which we cannot defend the trees. The eggs are laid in clefts of the bark, and the grubs hatch quite out of reach of poisons and other damaging spraying solutions. They feed on the living substance
under the bark, and their presence is shown by swellings above their burrows. Twigs, limbs, and trunks are distorted, and gradually the tree loses vitality, and the wood is made worthless by the honeycombing it receives. Only in the mountainous parts of its range does the black locust reach its best growth. No tree has better lumber for posts and other uses requiring dura bility in contact with the soil and with water.
The clammy locust is a pink-flowered species with a sticky substance exuding from the hairy surface of new shoots. The flowers are lovely but scentless. The trees are much planted in parks and on lawns as an ornament, in all tem perate climates.
The honey locust earns its name in the summer time, when the curving green pods are full of a sweet, gelatinous pulp. Boys would like to get these honey pods, but the vicious thorns per mit no climbing of the trees. Stoning and other throwing of missiles is a slow and unsatisfactory means of obtaining the forbidden fruit that hangs so high. By the time they ripen and fall off the pods are bitter as gall.
An old-world relative has thick, purple pods, which are sweet and palatable when ripe. These are brought to this country, and sold on small fruit stands under the name, St. John's bread. It is said that this was the food of John the Baptist in the wilderness.
The Kentucky coffee tree is the coarsest mem ber of the locust family in our woods. Its pods are thick and short, and the seeds inside are as large as hazel nuts. In the story of the Revolu tionary War, the patriotic citizens refused to pay duties on imported goods. The seeds of this locust were used as a substitute for coffee. I have tasted the bitter outside of one of these nuts, and tried to break one with a hammer, but un successfully. It is not easy to understand how a beverage made of such a nut could have been fit to drink. The name of the tree seems to give colour of truth to the tradition.