634 
president's address. 
This does not quite agree with my own observations. 
Both in the " Eucalyptographia " and in the "Select Extra- 
Tropical Plants" (Ninth Edition, 1895), Baron von Mueller has 
supplemented his own experiences with a considerable amount of 
information from other sources. The Baron considers that E. 
globulus "is, among evergreen trees, of unparalleled rapid growth." 
And of E. amygdalina he says that "plants grown on rather 
barren ground near Melbourne have shown nearly the same 
amazing rapidity of growth as those of E. globulus" The follow- 
ing instances relating to extra- Australian localities are selected 
from a large number quoted by the Baron : — In eight years in 
the south of France E. amygdalina attained a height of 50 feet. 
E. globulus in Jamaica attained a height of 60 feet in seven 
years; in California 60 feet in eleven years; in Florida 40 feet in 
four years (stem-diameter 1 foot); in the Neilgherry Hills 30 feet 
in four years (one tree, twelve years old, being 100 feet high, and 
6 feet in girth, at 3 feet from the ground). Near Pretoria the 
same species "attained a stem-circumference of 9J feet in 22 
years"; and "in Algeria and Portugal it has furnished railway 
sleepers in eight years, and telegraph-poles in ten years." 
Mr. H. C. Russell, F.R.S., the Government Astronomer, 
supplied some particulars in some notes read before the Royal 
Society of N.S. Wales in 1891, and these he has kindly supple- 
mented with later information. 
The trees measured were Eucalypts, growing at Mt. Victoria, 
and Lake George, and others planted in Observatory Park. 
At Lake George one of four young trees was selected for 
measurement in January, 1885, when its girth three feet from 
the ground was found to be 23 inches. On 10th November, 
1891, its girth was 52J inches; on 22nd November, 1892, it was 
54J inches; on 1st January, 1894, 60J inches; and in January, 
1895, 631 inches. 
Other trees have been marked since the notes above-mentioned 
were made, and the results will be watched with interest. At 
Mt. Victoria on barren ground, about fifty years after Sir T. 
Mitchell had cleared one of the hills for survey purposes, the trees 
