VALUE OF THE EUCALYPTUS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1701, 3 June 1884, Page 3

VALUE OF THE EUCALYPTUS.

It appears that wherever there is surplus moisture a large'eucalyptus willprove of great service, and a .group of them will dispose' of a vast amount of house sewerage, But where there is water .which it is not desirable to exhaust, as ; in a good well, it will be wise to put thc'euculyptns far away.. The owner of Bay Island ;Farm, Alameda County, recently found a.-curious root formation of the eucalyptris'in the bot ; torn of his well, about 17' feet below the surface. The trees to which; the roots belong stand 50 feet, from- the well. Two shoots pierced through the brick wall of the well, and sending oil' millions of fibres, formed ft dense mat that completely covered the bottom of the well, . Most of these fibres are no larger than threads, and are so woven and. intertwisted as to form a mat as impenetrable and strong as though regularly woven in a loom. The mat when first taken out of the well was water soaked and coveied with mud, and nearly all a man could lift, but when dry, it was nearly as soft to touch as wool, and weighed only a few ounces. This is an excellent illustntion of the way in which the eucalyptus absorbs moisture, its roots going so far to find water, pushing themselves through a brick wall, and then daveloping enormously after the water is reached. It is thought that one of the causos of tho drying up of wells is the insatiable thirst of theso vegetable monsters, ,