A USEFUL TREE FOR PLANTING.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 369, 24 September 1874, Page 2

A USEFUL TREE FOR PLANTING.

The Malva shrub, a native of California, has been attracting the attention of the Agricultural Society of Melbourne. If all is true that is stated of this plant, it is a most wonderful and useful one, and the General Government ought immediately to procure some heeds of it to distribute among&t the settlers of ourvarious provinces. We are told that the Malva shrub is a beatiful evergreen, and is valuable in an industrial sense. It grows equally well in a wet or dry season, on lowlands or hillsides, regardless of climate or special culture. It can be produced from seed carelessly strewn, and in five years attains an average height of 30ft., usually surviving eight years, but the falling seed maintains a perpetual growth, and the tree gives more seed than any other known, besides enduring the effects of climate, the foliage can sustain cattle and sheep, which will leave clover to feed on its large juicy leaves ; and from experiment it has been found that cows give more and richer milk from its nutriment. Cattle only browse on the leaves, which are quickly replaced. The plant blooms for nine months in the year, and bees work upon the flowers all the time, preferring them to those of others. The stem of the shrub which attains aboxit 18in. in diameter, after lying on the ground during the rainy season, becomes partially decayed, and exhibits a mass of fine delicate, and strong fibre, capable of being used in the same manner as flax. Onejacre of these trees, after the first growth, will yield ten times the fibrous material that an acre of flax would, with the advantage that little or no labour is required. Thus the trees will aid in attracting moisture to parched countries, feed cattle, sheep, and bees, and also produce at an earl date an article of commercial value in fibre. After the second year animals* may be allowed to feed on them with impunity. They grow with such exuberance and rapidity that leaves eaten off are produced in a week, and no animals have been known to gnaw the branches. Where this plant is abundant, it is a fact that feveiis and sickness are rare, as it acts in the same manner as the sunflower, which is known to remove malaria. It is of immense vahie in countries destitute of forests, and which are subjected periodically to destructive droughts, like Australia in many parts. The season for sowing them is immediately before the winter rains commence, and the plants, when from 10 to 12 inches high, ought to be transplanted.