the same price than the larger, and can generally be obtained for much less. For forest culture, the smaller trees are indispensable to success. Again, it is frequently the case that the lower branches are trimmed off to a mischievous extent, which also is a mistake; for where a tree has sufficient space to grow in, but little trimming is necessary, and it is a false taste which seeks to improve (?) upon nature by depriving a tree of its normal physiognomy and distinctive character by carving it into grotesque or inappropriate shapes; it is simply mutilation, and is certain to result in the premature decay and death of the victim. flattening of the head by certain aboriginal tribes, and the distorted feet of the fashionable Chinese ladies, are further and pertinent illustrations of analogous hideous violations of natural form.

The

The annexed letter from Dr. W. P. Gibbons, of Alameda, contains so much practical knowledge in regard, especially, to the cultivation of the eucalyptus, that I here insert it for the benefit of the public, although the author did not write it for publication:

I am sorry to say that I can contribute nothing of my own experience which is calculated to throw light on the medical properties of the eucalyptus globulus. Though I have frequently used it, the results are not such as to warrant any general conclusion of its therapeutic value. I am not entirely clear in my own mind as to the species intended to be designated as "blue gum." According to Wools, as well as Mueller, there are three species popularly recognized as "blue gum:" blue gum, flooded gum, and Cumberland gum, are names of the eucalyptus goniocalyx; a tree of small growth in some localities, and in others attaining two feet diameter in thirty years. It generally attains, however, a height of seventy or eighty feet, and a diameter of seven feet. It is valued for its timber, for building and other purposes. In Western Australia, on the Mittagory Range, is the mountain blue gum eucalyptus engenioides, the wood of which is considered inferior to the goniocalyx. The Tasmanian blue gum is the eucalyptus globulus. In its native localities it is subject to the ravages of beetles. This is the species, which is so commonly known (whether correctly known, I am unable to say,) throughout California. *** As to the cultivation of the tree, the gist

of the matter is this: gardeners pot the young plants, and, after they have so grown for a year or more, they send them to mar. ket. A potted tree always has distorted and horizontal roots. Hence, if placed in the ground without root-trimming, it will always maintain a spiral and circumscribed growth. Thus we see a root, so distorted, has no chance of sending off side growths and perpendicular growths, which will anchor the tree in soil. A potted tree should always be well trimmed in the roots, so as to give a chance for young, vigorous, and spreading branches. Don't leave long and twisting roots upon them.

Again, the tree should never be trimmed up. The young tree has a different leaf from the old one. For two or three years nothing but nursing leaves grow upon it. These leaves are larger, and present a

much greater respiratory surface than subsequent leaves. They are necessary to give development to the root. As soon as the adult leaves are developed, the side branches, bearing the milk leaves, die off. The tree should never be topped, as this would spoil its beauty, mar its growth, and render it more liable to be blown over during high winds. All the foregoing precautions are advisable to prevent this accident. Calculate the area of foliage exposed to wind, and the resultant direction of force there applied, and you will see the point.

It is as impossible for a healthy tree that has been well root trimmed and planted, to blow over, as it is impossible for a potted tree, headed off and carelessly planted, to stand a storm. By planting them ten feet apart, they will support each other during wind storms. I would recommend the planting of several species. The E. vinsinalis is a very graceful tree, yielding a substance called manna. It grows one hundred and eighty feet high and eight feet in diameter; the wood is not much esteemed. The E. colossea grows four hundred feet high; is more bushy than globulus, and of more rapid growth; the timber is good. The Ě. amygdalina has been known to grow four hundred and eighty feet high. The E. eugenioides is of fine growth, one hundred and fifty feet high. By multiplying the number of species planted, we insure some from disease and premature decay.

From the Rural Press we gather the following additional information respecting the seeding and planting of this tree, from the same authority above referred to:

Plant your seed immediately, in a box twelve inches deep, containing eight inches of clean, rich loam, by dropping the seeds on the surface, about an inch apart, and covering them with a quarter of an inch of sawdust, or by sifting vegetable mold over them to a like depth. The common method of placing the seed in three or four inches depth of soil, is objectionable, as the roots soon penetrate to the bottom of the box, and are bent off at right angles to the axis of the plant. This distortion prevents the tree from having such a firm hold in the soil, as it otherwise would. Hence so many eucalyptus trees blow over after having a growth of four or five years. Their germination may be facilitated by soaking them for twenty-four hours in a pint of warm water, in which a piece of saltpetre or carbonate of ammonia about the size of a marble, has been dissolved. Place the box in your kitchen, or some other warm locality where sunlight will reach it, cover it with glass or a piece of board, and keep the soil watered every day, sufficient

to give a decidedly moist character thereto; if possible, keep up a temperature of about seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, during the daytime, until the seeds sprout. When they are half an inch high, remove the covering, and give them sunshine. They will grow more slowly, but the plants will be more hardy and vigorous. When they are four inches high, they should be gradually seasoned to out-door temperature, so that they may be ready to transplant as soon as frosts disappear. You will then have trees from four to six inches high, growing in a depth of soil which will insure straight and vigorous roots.

A

I presume, now, that I am talking to a farmer,

who has from one hundred to five hundred acres of land; who has been raising cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, for twelve years past; who has never planted a forest tree on his premises; who has stripped his cañons of the few straggling oaks which once kept up a flowing stream throughout the year; who has spent his money in purchasing fencing for his fields; whose homestead looks as dreary as weather beaten boards and ash colored surroundings can make it. I know that there are hundreds of such farmers around, and I wish to show them the money-making aspect of cultivating trees.

You have one hundred acres of ground then. That will be equivalent to a square plot of ten acres to each side, of two thousand and eightysix feet; so that the outside of your farm will measure eight thousand three hundred and forty-four feet round. Subsoil a strip twenty-six feet wide round your land; this will take up five acres. Through this strip open four furrows six feet apart, and run the plow through each several times till the soil is loosened deep and finely pulverized. The ground is now prepared for planting.

B

Take a piece of thick twine or bale rope some two hundred feet long, untwist and tie through the strands short pieces of rag four feet apart; stretch the line tightly along the center of one of the furrows, and with a dibble make a hole six inches deep and an inch and a half in diameter opposite each mark on the line. Knock off one side of your box containing the plants, and with a trowel or strong knife carefully detach each tree from the soil, disturbing the soil about their roots as little as possible. Then take the tree between the thumb and finger of the left hand, pass its root into a hole to its natural depth, and with a trowel or piece of flat, hard wood pointed at the end, press the dirt around the root, and level the soil about it. In short, plant them just as you would cabbages or tomato plants; but mark this point, be sure that the roots are vertical. See this representation-figure A. The tree is in the hole with the stick ready to close in the soil about the root; figure B, the tree as planted with the stick ready to withdraw from the soil. You will thus have four rows of trees round your farm, four feet apart in the row,

and the rows six feet distant; each row will contain two thousand and eighty-six trees, making an aggregate of eight thousand three hundred and forty-four trees, occupying five acres of your ground. Two men can plant three thousand trees in a day in this manner. They will require no stakes. They must be dressed by the cultivator three times during the first year, and they must receive one plowing and three dressings each succeeding year, for four years.

The following table will give the dimensions of the trees at five years old, and at every succeeding year, till they are thirteen years old:

On the sixth year, take out every other tree of first row; seventh year, second row; eighth year, third row; ninth year, fourth row. The amount of cord wood obtained each year will be forty-seven, fifty-seven, ninety-three, and one hundred and sixteen, making a total of three hundred and twenty-three cords. You will now have left four thousand one hundred and seventy-two trees, and the trees will be eight feet apart in the row. On the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth year take out every other tree, and the amount of cord wood obtained will be seventy five, ninety-three, one hundred and fourteen, and one hundred and forty, making four hundred and twenty-two cords. Making an aggregate of seven hundred and forty-five cords of wood obtained, and a balance of two thousand and eighty-six trees, which will contain six hundred and eighty-four cords. Now sum up the whole operation. Total quantity of wood realized at the end of thirteen years, one thousand four hundred and twenty nine cords, at a cost of:

These estimates are within bounds. On dry hillsides, the growth will not be so rapid, and if fifty per cent be taken from the foregoing results, there will still be left a wide margin for profit. On the other hand, on larger farms, a much greater number of trees may be thus cultivated. The outside capacity of one hundred and sixty acres will be fourteen thousand trees, yielding at the end of thirteen years, two thousand four hundred cords of wood. Any other kinds of forest trees will prove remunerative if cultivated, but on account of the rapid growth of the

eucalyptus and the density and durability of its wood, it commends. itself over other kinds for immediate profits But some farmers must bear in mind one cardinal fact: that while Providence furnishes the material and conditions for the healthy growth and development of trees, it does not engage in the cultivation of the soil.

CONSUMPTION.

But the plantation of trees is not the only process for arresting or mitigating the prevalence of fevers and other diseases resulting from the toxic effects of malaria. I say other diseases, because the action of malaria is by no means confined to intermitting, or typhoid, or other acute zymotic affections. The effect may not be to produce actual disease, but day by day it insidiously degenerates the vital force, and not infrequently superinduces that depraved condition of the body which is marked by tubercular deposit in the lungs. The most striking evidence in this matter is furnished in Holland, as is shown by the reports of Dutch and Belgian physicians, as well as by the latest observations in Algiers. According to the high authority of Dr. H. Von Ziemssen, tuberculosis, and the phthisis, resulting from cheesy pneumonia, are very frequent diseases in the fever districts of Holland and Amsterdam, and especially in the "polders" of Holland-those portions of land reclaimed from the sea by the building of dykes. These pulmonary affections are often associated with repeated attacks of intermittent fever, followed by the malarial cachexia.

In the last Biennial Report of the State Board of Health, the mortality by consumption is shown to be from two and one half to twenty per cent of the deaths from all other causes. A further examination shows the distribution of these deaths to be very unequal in the various towns reported, the mortality by consumption in some of them being greatly in excess of that found in others of equal size, and of equally stationary population, representing all ages. Doubtless a large proportion of these deaths is attributable to the number of the phthisical, who seek too late the benign influence of our climate, and thus add to the sum of mortality, by consumption, in the locality where they die. This is particularly the case in Santa Barbara, where consumption was com paratively unknown before the town became the sanitarium it now is. But making every allowance for the fluctuating character of our population, and the hopeless condition of many of the immigrants, the mortality by consumption is still greatly in excess of what we might expect it should be, especially in such localities as the region of the Russian River, Napa, Sonoma, and Petaluma Valleys, and that portion of the Sacramento Valley embraced in Yolo and Solano Counties, the southern part of the San Francisco peninsula, the San José and San Joaquin Valleys, and the coast region between Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, where the rate of mortality by consumption is between fourteen to twenty per cent. From a careful comparison of statistics furnished by physicians in all parts of Massachusetts, Dr. Bowditch has inferred the influence of a damp location in inducing, or at least promoting, consumption, and the influence of the same cause in giving rise to rheumatism, sore throat, and other inflammatory affections, is well known by all physicians. Our statistics, as far as they go, are confirmatory of the same conclusions.

Most of our towns have been located accidentally to meet the exigencies of trade, and without a thought as to sanatory advan