the second year, and again about the fourth or fifth, and the 

 main commercial crop would be t\uc again about the seventh 

 year. 



Fourth- The Eucalypti in California are free for all prac- 

 tical purposes from parasites or fungi. The appended article 

 from the L T . S. Departmenl of Agriculture indicates the im- 

 portance of this characteristic : 



How Hardwoods Decay. 



"Hardwood trees in the forests are attacked by many 

 enemies. The mistletoe, the 'witches" broom,' and the south- 

 ern mosses are all parasites that weaken and even destroy the 

 trees. Bu1 hy far the greater number of diseases of trees are 

 caused by fungUS growth. Some fungi destroy the leaves, 

 some rot the roots, and some girdle the hark. Chestnut orch- 

 ards have been destroyed in many places in the East by a 

 kind of fungiis which girdles the hark and kills the tree. 



'Then there are many kinds of fungus which rot the 

 wood of standing trees, with no outward sign until after the 

 value of the tree has been destroyed. The white heart-rot is 

 the most common of these. It attacks the oak. walnut, hick- 

 ory, beech, maples, and many other trees. The heartwood of 

 the tree is changed by the action of the fungus into a light- 

 colored, flaky sort of substance which has no strength and 

 can no longer he called wood. Such a tree may live for many 

 years, even though badly diseased, but it has no value for 

 timber. 



"The outward sign, when it does appear, is a shelf-like 

 growth upon the trunk. It is hoof-shaped, about as thick as 

 wide, and may be anywhere from one to two inches with 1 to 

 twelve inches or more. The upper surface runs from brown 

 to black, the lower surface from gray to red-brown. Wher- 

 ever such a tree is found it should be removed at once, for 

 the longer it stands the less it is worth for timber, and it will 

 surely spread the disease to other trees. Any sort of wound 

 in a sound tree, such as a broken limb, ,u'ives an opening for 

 the fungus to enter and establish itself, unnoticed until the 

 heartwood is destroyed. Wherever such a wound can be 

 promptly coated with hot coal-tar creosote or some other good 

 antiseptic substance, it may be saved from infection." 



Fifth — The sanitary influence of Eucalyptus plantations is 

 good. The genera] effect of the blue gum in particular is to 

 reduce or remove conditions leading to malarial disease. They 

 have been planted for this particular purpose in Italy near 

 Rome, in Corsica, and in Algiers. 



The leaves of the blue gum, E. globulus, are the recog- 

 nized reliable source of Eucalyptus oil and its product, Euca- 



:,:. 



