Evening star., 1918-08-18

bike, four miles apart. measuring the
distance from Old Liberty Church TO
Green Wood Chapel. Following the
left-hand fork for about q mile. tho
Rambler came to a point where the
road on which he was travelling crossed
a road which had the look of a farm
lane. and jotting down his impressions
at the time. he wrote:
This crossroad, sometimes called q private
road and sometimes public road sosd "a Win S,a
toric roads Of Virginia. which. Of course. en-.
titles Il to b. elassed as one Of the historic
highways between the Potomac valley and the
mountains on the west long before the Little
burg and the Georgetown and Lcesburg pixies
were built across the country In the early part
Of the nineteenth century. This older road along
parts Of Its course 1t continues to be public
highway and along other parts Of Its course 1t
sas e ancient road a,
places, and after following 1t for some ways It
will disappear In 4 ield or woods, or meeting
% right u "S way and i" vanish. But miles farther
along In the country you may meet anotner G
ses Of ri. old road % sn9agsS IN
After writing that paragraph the
Rambler turned east along that his
toric road as far as the Lane Bridges
homestead, where with good friends
he ate . good dinner and then ut his ms
cast their shadows on the house and
across the road that passes by 1t. The
house was standing there Q century
and Q half ago. and the road was an
Peter Pei i HaiEett.s regiment Of British
grenadiers, forming q part OF Brad
docks army, marched over. 1t from
Alexandria to Winchester in April,
1765.
A*
Al the Rambler sat in the shade OF
those. old trees and smoked pipe.
perhaps not quite as old as they, but
yet old enough. he reflected that he
seldom comes upon an old-fashioned
home in Virginia or Maryland that Is
not haded by locust trees. Some
times the trees stand long after the
house has perished. There was an
intimate attachment between early
settlers and locust trees. This is
fact that has often been commented
en- by persons who have never come
to understand the regard in which
our ancestors held that tree. The
modern man will say 1t Is not beau
tiful. He will find fault with 1t be-
cause 1t is ragged. lacks symmetry
and usually presents a storm-swept
or tempest-broken aspect. To the old
fashioned man or woman 1t was
beautiful tree and had greater merits
than mere beauty. To them 1t was
not ragged. but rugged. 1t did not
seek popularity because of its form.
If 1t lacked symmetry, it had indi-
4.
honorable scars. 1T had met all kinds
of storms and had stood its ground.
1t was a rough -barked, gnarled and
hardy tree, and these characters made
p stronger appeal to our ancestors
ilan the grace, daintiness and deli
,acy of some trees that have less real
worth than the locust.
The rough old locust has spring.
time beauty which few other trees
can rival. 1t decks itself with pend
ants of white flowers and 1t never
fails to welcome spring with an out
burst OF gorgeous bloom. Some fairy
dressed in sunbeams and vernal airs
touches with her magic wand the
rough and stern old locust tree and 1T
becomes as beautiful as a bride array
Cd in lace and orange blossoms. And
also was it famous for the fragrance
of it's flowers. The locust filled the air
with incense and invited all the bees
to come and revel in the nectar of its
flowers. and all the bees loved this
tree nearly as dearly as they did the
linden.
One Of the beliefs of the early set
tiers was that the locust tree had the
power of protecting a house against
lightning. How this belief came to
impress itself on SO many people the
Rambler does not at this moment
know and cannot now take time to
investigate. To certain trees was as
cribed the property Of attracting
lightning. One of these was the pop
lar. To other trees was ascribed the en-
uowment Of repelling lightning. One
OF the was the locust. People
believed in the locust tree as light
ming insurance long before Franklin's
original iron lightning rod made its
appearance in 1852. 1t may be that
some trees are better conductors OF
electricity than others and that the
numerous prongs and sharp pointed
brapches of the locust tree offer some
measure of defense against that form
OF lightning which Sir Oliver Lodge
described as Flash A: being of the
simple type which arises when an
electrically charged cloud approaches
the earth without an intermediate
Intervening cloud"
The theory in erecting a number OF
pointed rods to form lightning con-
ductor was to produce glow or
brush discharge and thus neutralize or
relieve the tension Of the thunder
cloud. The belief in the protecting
influence of the locust tree survived,