41 



for 20 miles around. My house stands in the midst of these trees. 

 My irrigating ditch, a dozen feet wide, of sluggish current, runs through 

 the grove beside the house. There has never a single mosquito larva 

 been seen in the ditch from where it enters the first shade of these 

 trees to where it emerges from them 200 yards away, while above and 

 below, mosquito larvae are plentiful — not immediately below, but some 

 hundreds of yards away, where the water stands in pools and becomes 

 stagnant among a growth of black walnuts and cotton woods. My live 

 stock pasture in this timber, going into the walnuts and back again, 

 under the Eucalyptus shade at pleasure. Frequently when the cows 

 come up at night they bring a swarm of mosquitoes ; occasionally some 

 of them get into the house, but cause us so little annoyance that we 

 scarcely notice them. Before this ditch reaches the Eucalypti it runs 

 through a jungle of " fence bamboo" (Arundo macrophylla), where the 

 mosquitoes are so bad that we avoid working there except on the 

 windiest days And, though the ditch has mor^ current there, the 

 larvae of mosquitoes are plentiful in the water till it reaches the 

 Eucalyptus trees, bslow which point none are found till it has become 

 stagnant away below them. 



'People who have camped along the willows of King's River, only a 

 few miles away, have come here with faces so blotchied and swollen, 

 from mosquito bites as to be hardly recognizable, and have camped in 

 the shade of " Sander's gum trees," as my grove is popularly called, 

 for weeks, and declare that they never even heard a mosquito sing 

 during that time. 



'To the non-botanical reader I may say that this species of Eucalyptus 

 is very tender to frost. The coldest weather ever known here, 19° 

 J\, above zero, killed thousands of them. Dr. Nuttall points out that 

 the planting of Eucalyptus trees is not a sovereign remedy, from the 

 fact that malaria still prevails at Tre Fontane, outside of Rome, in 

 spite of Eucalyptus plantings. The mere planting of trees,' however, 

 is undoubtedly of use in malarial districts, since it will modify the 

 condition of drainage to the soih' 



view of Mr. Sander's strong evidence it really appears that 

 planting of Eucalyptus trees will be worth while in certain locations, 

 not entirely (on account of the conflicting and not thoroughly satis- 

 factory evidence) for mosquito protection, but incidentally for this use 

 as well as other purposes." 



Dr. Benjafield, a medical man who has resided for the last twenty- 

 seven years in Tasmania, described the advantages of the Colony as a 

 health resort lately at the Imperial Institute. 



He said (according to Nature) that he was struck on his arrival in 

 Tasmania, with the almost complete absence of consumption and bron- 

 chitis, and it was now three years since he has signed a certificate of death 

 from the former disease. Last year the rural mortality of southern Tas- 

 mania was only 8.8 per 1,000, In Hobart 2,26 1 hours of sunshine have 

 been recorded in one year, as against 1,158 at Oxford in England The 

 climate of the Colony is one of the most even a ad excellent in the 

 world. The atmosphere is pure, clear and crisp, and the general pre- 

 valence in the air, as indicated by the characteristic odour, of the 

 .essential oil of the Eucalyptus tree, existing in abundance in the Colony 



