BRIEF REIIARKS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE MAIN-WORK WITH ITS 



TENTH DECADE. 



Altliougli at least two more decades are needed, to complete mainly tlie specific records of 

 aU existing Encalj^jts, it is deemed best Ly the author of this work, to provide indices and a 

 synoi^sis of the characteristics of the species now already. The reasons are obvious ; among the 

 20-30 kinds of Eucalypts, yet to be illustrated, none seems to hold out a promise of becoming of 

 superior technic importance; their specific demarcation moreover can in most cases Hot yet be 

 drawn with completeness and accuracy for want either of sufficient museum-material, or of 

 opportunities to study their characteristics further in culture or in free nature. Moreover the 

 Eucalypts, which remain yet to be dealt with, are mostly restricted to widely distant and as yet 

 hardly accessible localities, and may even not become all well elucidated during the remaining 

 years of this century. But by the time, at which the specific records as a mere basis or frame- 

 work for industrial researches shall have been completed, vast access also will have been gained 

 through trial - cultures, therapeutic application, laboratory - analyses, engineering tests and 

 handicraft-exertions to those data, which the author has endeavoured, concerning the great genus 

 Eucalyptus, to collect into the present ten decades ; hence ample additional material, the 

 acquirement of which may indeed extend to an almost indefinite period, is sure to accumulate for 

 supplemental pages and plates, or perhaps for recasting the whole monography. A hojDe is 

 however entertained, that by issrdng some new portion of this work ere long, various important 

 supplemental notes may at no distant day be connectedly gathered on species, which appeared in 

 the earlier decades. Thus already the large treatise by Prof. Charles Naudin on the very 

 numerous kinds of Eucaly]i3ts, raised by that highly scientific ruralist in the famous garden of the 

 VUle Thuret near Antibes and traced there from the embryonic state to the full development of 

 each specific form, wUl aiford important data, as rendered known in the Annales des Sciences 

 naturelles of this year. The mechcal periodicals of all civilized nations bring also more and 

 more therapeutic notices on the various Eucalypts, which information needs to be connectedly 

 utilized for future pages of this or any other Monography of the genus ; and in accoixiplishing 

 this, we will be again reminded by an enlightened and venerable American of the scriptural words : 

 "The leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations" (Revelat. xxii. 5). Extensive 

 plantations, assuming in many a country both of the northern and southern hemisphere now 

 already forestral dimensions, give rise likewise to more varied application of Eucalyptus-wood in 

 technology for perhaps early record. A recently commenced splendid issue, " The Forest-Flora 

 of South Australia," by the zealous conservator and generator of woods in a sister-colony, con- 

 tiniaes to bring new notations before us, none of which appeared in time to be utilized for the 

 Eucalyptography hitherto here. Mr. Hutchins's elaborate comparative measurements of Eucalyp- 

 tus-growth in the Nilgeris, where forest-culture of Eucalypts received, like in many otiier places 

 abroad, early support from the writer, need corresponding observations in other zones and under 

 different circumstances here and elsewhere. May these brief indications now also show, that the 

 author cannot liope during the remaining probably brief period of his life-time, to complete the 

 l)resent work with some approach to exliaustiveness of the subject, and tliat it was therefore l)ost 

 to bring it to a temporary conclusion now ; he at tlie same time well foreseeing, that the Eucalypts 

 are destined, to play a prominent part for all times to come in the silvan culture of vast tracts of 

 the globe, and that for hardwood-supplies, for sanitary measures and for beneficieut climatic! 

 changes all countries within the warmer zones will witli apiireciable extensiveuess have to rely 

 on our Eucalypts during an as yet uncountable future ! 



