Tales of the San Francisco Peninsula
by
Theron G. Cady
A series of articles first published in 'Peninsula Life Magazine'
Published by C-T Publishers, San Carlos, California, 1948
Of all the trees that
cast their welcome shade over the Peninsula's byways, none is so intruguing
as the eucalyptus. Brought to California less than 100 years ago,
these stately giants are, with the exception of the isolated Sequoias,
the largest living things in the West.
Just who introduced the
eucalyptus in California is a matter of conjecture, but it is a historical
fact that the first small shoots were brought to the west coast from Australia
in sailing vessels years after California was admitted into the Union.
Credit is given to the
Shellmound Nurseries and Fruit Gardens in Oakland for setting out the first
eucalyptus trees in 1856. Other silviculturists are of the opinion
this specie of the myrtle tribe was introduced in 1863 by Bishop William
Taylor who preached in the streets of San Francisco in the roaring 1850's.
He had visited Australia and while there became a great admirer of the
stately eucalyptus and send several shoots home to his wife who had remained
in the States.
It matters little who
planted the first trees in California. The important thing is that
they grew well along the West Coast as in their native Australia.
Californians were amazed to see these foreign trees grow to a height of
twenty feet in two seasons. The result was that groves which sprang
up in Alameda County soon spread to other parts of the state. Elwood
Cooper set out large groves in 1865 on his ranch near Santa Barbara and
T.P. Lukens of Pasadena, Abbott Kinney of Venice and others followed.
An article in the Overland
Monthly of November 1888, credits General Stratton of Alameda County
with being among the first to plant eucalyptus to any extent. In
1869 he set out forty-five acres of the shoots on a hilly tract of land
near Hayward. The venture was very profitable, for eleven years later
twenty acres were cut and after charging every item of cost and yearly
rental of $5.00 an acre, the owner showed a profit of $4,866.
Growers since that time
hae learned that five-year-old blue gums, when set out six by six feet
apart, will yield fifty to eighty cords of wood per acre; ten-year-olds,
eighty to 150 cords. The yield, according to foresters, will even
exceed these figures substantially if the trees are irrigated.
In the first biennial
report of the State Board of Health for 1870-71, the eucalyptus tree was
reported as being serviceable in two ways. "The roots act as a sponge,
pumping water and drainage ground and emitting odorous antiseptic emanations
from its leaves. It absorbs from the soil ten times its weight in
water every twenty-four hours."
The result was that the
eucalyptus was put to work to make swamp lands more habitable. The
Sacramento Union, in an editorial on October 20, 1874, had this
to say about that experiment:
"The eucalyptus tree
has, up to a late date, been chiefly accounted valuable in this state for
the rapidity of its growth and the various uses to which its wood may be
applied. But it is now established as a fact that it has quite a
value on account of the anti-bilious quality of its foliage which, by the
rapid absorption of noxious fever-breeding malaria, acts as preventative
of some of the worst common forms of fever prevalent in many parts of the
state. Kern Island had been almost uninhabitable from chills and
fever. Eucalyptus groves absorbed the dangerous malaria, making it
as healthy as the Coast Range."
In 1888, the Overland
Monthly reported an eucalyptus which blew down near Melbourne, Australia,
measuring ninety feet in circumference and 475 feet high. None of
the trees in California had yet attained that size, but they were growing
fast. Many of them had exceeded a height of seventy feet, and three
feet in girth in twelve years--150 feet in thirty years. Today, California's
tallest eucalyptus giants are those which stretch skyward more than 200
feet on the University of California campus in Berkeley.
Pioneers not only discovered
the medicinal value of the eucalyptus and its worth as fuel but they found
its wood had many other uses as well. Some varieties of the tree
were highly valued for manufacture of wagon felloes, they exterior wooden
rim of the wheel. Other varieties made excellent ship timbers and
the wood produced a very high grade of charcoal. The bark was found
to be useful in paper making and tanning.
Besides these many uses
the eucalyptus is valuable for the gum-resin which comes from its trunk
and the volatible oil in its leaves. This gum-resin is employed in
the manufacture of soaps, perfumes, lozenges, courtplaster, liniments,
syrups, pomades, toilet vinegars, varnishing oils, veneer, tracing paper
and a score of others.
In the years before the
war with Japan, approximately 150,000 pounds of eucalyptus oil were imported
annually from Australia. Strangely, oil from California trees is
said to lack potency of that grown in Australia.
About 300 varieties of
eucalyptus are known to exist and today between sixty and seventy-five
of those are found in California. Of the dozen or more varieties
that line our highways, the blue gum is the most distinguishable by its
smooth, olive-green trunk, bright blue juvenile foliage and flat-topped,
button-like fruit. It is regarded by some as the vandal of the family
because its roots have a way of seeking defective sewer lines and tapping
them. Some California cities have adopted ordinances prohibiting
their being planted or grown within seventy feet of a sewer line.
Orchardists recognize
the blue gum as a heavy surface feeder which robs their citrus or fruit
trees of much needed moisture, but even so, they are constantly setting
out more and more of them because of their value as wind breaks.
Many of the eucalyptus
trees found on the Peninsula, especially in and around Burlingame, come
from the trees planted years ago by William Davis Merry Howard.
In coming from another
part of the world to California the eucalyptus proved it had what it takes
in a land where versatility counts. The intrepid Bishop Taylor, were
he alive, probably would be amazed at the way eucalyptus has taken hold
in California, and how Californians have become attached to the eucalyptus.
But were he to live a hundred years hence, he probably would be even more
amazed, for it is a certainty that by then many more varieties of the "gum
tree" or "stringy-back tree"--or eucalyptus-- will have found their way
to our landscape.