It will soon be a great object with American farmers to cultivate
locust-trees, in all locations to which they are adapted. Even in this
new world, we shall soon be dependent on cultivated timber for
fence-posts, railroad-ties, and building purposes. Our native forests
are rapidly disappearing, while demand for timber is as rapidly
increasing. Probably no other tree is so profitable for cultivation in
this country as the locust. It is of rapid growth, and hard and durable,
and adapted to many uses. The second-growth locust is not so durable as
the native forest-tree, as found in parts of Ohio; but, cut at a
suitable age and at the right season of the year, it is as durable as
white cedar, and much more valuable. The profits of the culture would be
great. An acre of locust-trees fifteen or twenty years old would be
worth fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars. The expense of growing
it, aside from the use of the land, would be trifling. The grove would
afford a good place for fowls, while the blossoms would be nearly equal
to white clover for honey. The limbs would make excellent wood, and the
ground would need no planting for a second growth. Fortunate will be the
men on the prairies of the West, and along the railroads and rivers of
the land, who shall early plant fields of locust. The profits of it will
greatly exceed the increase in the value of the land.