Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 273, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1913 — A Persistent Foe. [ARTICLE]

A Persistent Foe.

Much has been said of late In favor of the extensive cultivation of the black locust, and one railroad company Is reported to have ’planted nearly 1,500,000 trees of this species, with the view of utilizing their extraordinary durable wood. But Charles A. White of the Smithsonian Institution points out, In the Popular Science Monthly, that the black locust possesses a mortal enemy In a longtcorn beetle, which bores the wood through and through. It la a native of the same regions In which the tree flourishes, and depends upon the tree for its own existence. When population flowed to Illinois and lowa, the black locust was taken along. It flourished luxuriantly for some yean, until Its Insect foe followed It, and now, says Mr. White, nothing remains of the great groves of blade locust la the middle West except blasted remnants. The tree, native east of, the Allghenlee, from New York to the Gulf, was also transplanted to Europe, whither Its enemy has not followed 1L