Black locust blossoms

Flowers of Robinia pseudoacacia

Here in south central Kentucky, black locust (Robinia psudoacacia) is blooming. Several stands of young black locusts grow along the lane that leads uphill from the highway to our house. I enjoy the lovely fragrance of the blossoms each spring, and enjoy the memories of them until spring arrives again.

Bees are also drawn to the fragrance of the nectar-rich blossoms. An acre of honeylocust is said to produce 800 to 1200 pounds of honey. Moreover, the black locust blooms late enough in spring that the blossoms are rarely damaged by frost; thus, black locust is a reliable annual source for bees.

The benefits of planting black locust for honeybees have long been recognized. The following quotation from G. W. Demaree of Kentucky was included in a 1919 beekeeping manual:

"The time of year in which it blooms, nearly filling the interval between the late fruit-bloom and the white clover, makes it an exceedingly valuable auxiliary to the honey harvest in the Middle States, if not elsewhere. It is a most profuse honey-bearer, rivaling the famous linden in quality, and only inferior to the product of the latter in color.

Locust honey cannot be said to be dark in color. It is of rich pale-red color, when liquid; but when in the shape of combhoney, its appearance, if removed from the hive when first finished, is but little inferior to that of superior clover honey. It becomes exceedingly thick, if left with the bees till the cells are thoroughly sealed, and its keeping qualities are therefore most excellent.

The trees are planted by the side of fences, in waste places, and on poor, worn out lands. They may be propagated from the seeds, or by transplanting the young trees from one to three years old. If the ground is plowed in the spring, and the locust seeds planted on the hills with corn, or with other hill-crops, and cultivated the first year, the young trees will grow with great rapidity, even on very poor lands."

Source: First Lessons in Beekeeping (p. 123) by Camille Pierre Dadant. Published in 1919 by the American Bee Journal of Hamilton, Illinois.

Sycamore Fruit

Buttonballs, ready to drop

On a recent Saturday morning, my son and I spent two hours parked in a long line of stalled traffic on Interstate 65, just north of Elizabethtown, KY. An accident had occurred, and we had to wait until the road was cleared.

It was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, and our stopping place happened to be along a picturesque stretch of roadway. On our left, many dogwood and redbud trees were blooming on an east-facing hillside. On our right, a tangle of small trees and bushes were growing on the side of a ravine. Towering above them all was a young sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), seen in both the photo at left and the photo below.

Look how many of last year's fruits are still clinging to the top of that scyamore. This is typical of the tree -- in tree-speak, it's said that the sycamore fruits "persist" over winter.

The prickly seedballs break apart slowly, and the seeds gradually fall from the tree in late winter and spring. When there is wind or even a bit of breeze, the seeds drift along, using their "hair" as a parachute to keep them aloft. 

The seed release is also perfectly timed for the seeds to be dispersed by spring floods. As the waters recede, seeds left in the mud are in the ideal spot to sprout and grow.

If you want to plant a sycamore tree, look for a seedling in the spring. You can recognize them by their large leaves. They are easy to dig up and transplant when they are small.

A sycamore seed that takes root in a friendly site can grow up to 10 feet in its first year. That's simply amazing -- from a seed to a 10-foot tree in 12 months.

Sycamore likes any damp location. It is most often seen in low-lying areas near streams, ponds, and lakes, but it can also establish itself in upland situations where the soil stays damp most of the time. The sycamore growing on the side of the ravine is a good example of the upland situations that sycamores can handle. In that site, it probably gets a good bit of runoff water from the road everytime it rains.

Leaves and fruit of Platanus occidentalis, American sycamore

Photo by Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

A fine log house in Todd County, KY

Walnut shingles and tongue-in-groove floors

Many early log houses in Kentucky were built quickly and roughly. They were small structures with dirt floors and leaky roofs. They sheltered a pioneer family from wild animals, hostile Indians, and the worst of the weather. Perhaps when the fields were cleared, the barns and the fences were built, and a few harvests had been made, a larger, better house might be built.

This log house, built in Todd County sometime before 1809, was exceptionally well-made:

There were a few cabins which were quite pretentious and one of these had the first shingle roof in the county. It belonged to Adams, who sold out to Kennedy in 1809, and is thus described by the latter: "Adams was a thrifty, industrious man, and said to my father, 'I gad, I thought I would build the best and finest house in all the country.' It was constructed of large, hewed white oak logs, twenty-four feet long by eighteen feet wide, covered with black walnut shingles rounded at the butt end, and every one put on with walnut pegs, bored through shingles and lath with a brace and bit. It was a good roof, and lasted about thirty years.

"Then the lower and upper floors were laid with poplar plank, sawed by hand with a whip-saw, nicely dressed, tongued and grooved, and put down with pegs. Three windows two feet square, with nice shutters, but not a pane of glass, nor a nail in all the house, save in the three doors. For these a few nails were made by a blacksmith, his brother, Andy Adams. The chimneys were of stone, the first in the country, and contained at least 150 loads of rock. The fire-places were six feet wide, with wooden mantel-pieces."  -- History of Todd County, Ky., published by F. A. Battey Publishing Co. Chicago, 1884.

Source: Kentucky: A History of the State by William Henry Perrin, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffin (p. 209). Published in 1888 by F. A. Battey and Company, Louisville and Chicago.

Todd County, KY,  is just east of Christian County where I live. The Todd/Christian county line is only a few miles from my home. I am familiar with the terrain of Todd County, and I suspect that this house may have been built in "North Todd", as we say here. White oak, black walnut, and tulip poplar were chosen because they were some of the most decay-resistant woods available.

A log house built in 1793, near Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Kitchen (at rear) with dogtrot added later. Photographed in 1940.  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS KY,84-HARBU.V,2-

Woodlands were important to early settlers

Forests valued more than prairies

Early settlers called the area that is now southern Todd County "the barrens" because it was flat and grassy. Few trees grew there, except along streams. It was part of a large prairie ("barrens") that stretched across present-day Barren, Warren, Simpson, and Logan counties, and the southern parts of Todd, Christian, and Trigg counties (see map). These barrens were one of several areas of tallgrass prairie in Kentucky before the land was put under cultivation.

The northern part of Todd county was hilly and forested, with a little creek at the bottom of every ridge. Such land, though rough and rocky, was considered highly valuable by early settlers. The reasons are summarized in this passage, written a century ago:

These lands [the soils] were not rich, but there was an abundance of fine timber out of which to build houses and barns and construct Virginia rail fences; beautiful streams well stocked with the finest of game fish; an abundance of mast to fatten swine; the river and creek bottoms covered with a growth of succulent young cane upon which cattle could live all winter; and wild game of many varieties in great abundance.

No wonder the settlers from the wooded hills and valleys of Virginia preferred this section to the "Barren" lands, as the prairie lands before mentioned were called. These same "Barren" lands were then selling for twelve and one-half cents per acre, while the wooded lands were selling for eight times as much.

Source: A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians: The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce, Industry and Modern Activities by E. Polk Johnson (Volume 3, p. 1444). Published in 1912 by the Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago and New York.)