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EXPERIENCE IN COUNTY REVEALSnumlt;(Continued from page nine.)iyanked out to make room for a lemon grove.One thing that the eucalyptus grove seemed to do for that soil was to make it fine for lemons. The pulling of the trees stirred up the ground deep. The lemon trees planted where the eucalyptus stood i have done exceptionally well. The eucalyptus is branded as a soil rob-I her. It has been tried, convicted ind sentenced by many an orchard-i ist, but here is an instance of where | the soil seems to have been bettered.The trees grown on this bottom land did very well. The growth was heavy. But the trees on the hillsides did not do very well. According to Willard Smith, the trees were set too close together to make big trees. However, they were set at the distances then recommended by the government experts.Getting Them OutRecently Willard Smith and Hugh Thomson, who, by the way, are as fine a pair of citrus men as ever set out an ^orchard and made it grow, decided to develop a small valley in the Bixby Hills as a citrus proposition. In that valley were seventy or eighty acres of eucalyptus, some grey gum, some iron bark, and some other varieties selected by the governmentThe trees stood about 1,000 to the acre, running all the way from 900to 1,200.Mind you, these trees were set out about thirteen years ago. The average size of the trees most certainly was a disappointment. That is, they would have been a disappointment if size had been what wras looked for by those who cleared the land Ascost us to set out the grove and take care of it until the trees could take care of themselves, I don’t know. That cost was all sheer loss, too, for those who footed the bills.There is nothing to this growing of eucalyptus commercially,’’ declared Smith. If the land is good, It is too good for eucalyptus, and if it la poor, eucalyptus won't thrive on It.”Irish DividendsSuppose, now, that this Bixby land had been bought and the trees set out by one of the eucalyptus stock-selling companies that thrived during the stock-selling period.Where wgpld the stockholder be?•The company would have ten cords of wood, forth $16 a cord, per acre. That's $160 in receipts, for thirteen years. What would the disbursements be? There are taxes, interest, the care of the trees for a year or two, the cost of cutting the wood —in a lay-out like that, what kind of an Irish divident would the stock-holdpr get?M. W. Sweetser, now in the real estate business in Santa Ana, had a lot of experience in eucalyptus growing in the Garden Grove section. His father was among the first to plant eucalyptus.For a good many years eucalyptus growing was all right,” said Sweetser. Labor was cheap; land was cheap; and there was no oil for fuel, and wood was in big demand. F remember ray father cut 360 cords from three fourths of an acre of eucalyptus, about twenty-five years ago. The trees were twelve years old, and had a perfect stand. The soil was good and they had lots of water. It cost $3 a cord to have it cut, and wre sold it for $8.“Most of the orchards I helped setanrri(Ch
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Daily Evening Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Wed, Oct 20, 1920
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Los A.
CA, USA 28 Aug 2023
Other Publications Near Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana Pacific Weekly Blade
Santa Ana Excelsior
Santa Ana News
Santa Ana Evening Blade
Santa Ana Orange County Register Evening
