EUCALYPTUS NEAR ROME. 31 



can easily burn five francs^ worth of wood in a day, or at 

 the rate of seventy pounds' worth a year for a fire in one 

 small room. People have not fires enough for the wants 

 of a full civilization. Even large hotels allow their fires to 

 go out in the evening ; and cooking at unusual times can- 

 not be accomplished. The wood of a gum-tree five years 

 old is larger than necessary for firewood, and would at any 

 rate be of a most convenient size for splitting up. It is too 

 large near the ground to be used entire, and much larger 

 than any of the wood which I got in Rome or Florence. 



Let us imagine this as a source of fuel, a portion of the 

 Campagna, Maremma, Pontine marshes, &c. growing such 

 a crop of combustible matter every five years. Where else 

 will be found a coal-field equal in value ? Let the power 

 obtainable from this be calculated, and the value for na- 

 tional industry be estimated. 



Professor Boyd Dawkins tells me that Sir Charles Ni- 

 cholson, late Governor of Queensland, had proposed planting 

 the gum-trees in Italy twenty years ago, and had sent seed 

 enough to have covered the Maremma with trees ; but we 

 see what has been done. 



Speaking with a Roman senator on the subject, he said 

 it would take thirty years to grow the trees, and man was 

 a shadow and could not look so far. I know that man is 

 mortal, but have often heard that Rome is eternal ; and it 

 is for the future we must act. This senator had the same 

 idea we have here, of thirty years for a pretty strong stem ; 

 but now a valuable stem, such as is used with us as props 

 in coal-pits, is obtained in five with apparent certainty. 

 These five years themselves may be reduced, so far as ge- 

 neral usefulness is concerned, because at two years the trees 

 give out rich odour, and perhaps when still younger ; and 

 thus they begin to work almost at once, preparing whole- 

 some habitations. The evidence seems to be that in the 



