THE BLUE GUM IN FRANCE AND AFRICA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 674, 19 March 1875, Page 3

THE BLUE GUM IN FRANCE AND AFRICA.

—o— The Eucalyptus Iras proved a great success since it lias been introduced into Southern Fiance and Algeria, its marvellous rapid growth >s only equalled by its utility both as timber, a medicament, and a powerful sanitary agent in marshy districts. It is in addition very ornamental. It is as a purifier of an atmosphere filled with malaria, that its great importance is due ; its odour is very penetrating and recalls something of the laurel; either from the intensity of its perfume or its property of absorbing deleterious gases in lands where malaria finds a home, and which is so propitious to its growth, fever disappears. Its leaves and bark make such an excellent febrifuge that they arc now prescribed by French doctors as an economical succedanoum lor cinchona. The tree cannot unfortunately resist a continued low temperature of 41 degrees Farh,, hence, why it has only succeeded on the shores of the Mediterranean ; there is a beautiful avenue of these trees at the station of Nice and several pretty clumps of them at. Cannes ; in Algeria its cultivation Las made wonderful progress, and companies are being formed to plant the marshy dis tricts of Corsica and Algeria with the Eucalyptus. At three miles from the famous chapel of St Paul outside Home, the Trappists have at present luxurious plantations of this tree, and the experiment thus on the border of the lugubrious Pioman Oampagm is full of promise for (ho reclamation of that waste. Mr Adanson in his voyage through Tunis, has discovered in the plain of Thala, a forest of gum acacias, twenty by eight miles in extent ; the trees arc about twenty-four feet high, and twelve in circumference, and the gum freely exudes from the trunk and the branches. Steps are being taken to collect the gum for exportation, and tho Arabs havo in the meantime been prohibited from cutting down tbo trees for firewood, ns well ns to make charcoal for the prcparaUcn of gunpowder.

Martha: " Oh, if y’ please'm, it's the washy woman,” Parly with th» bundle: “ Beggin’ yor pordirg, miss, it ain,t. It’s tie Undress.