IV.–Various effects of denuding a country of Woody Plants. Now, let us also consider briefly some other effects of permanent woody vegetation. Whether it be in the form of stately forests, or of humble "scrub," the effects are the same, only differing in degree. If it be poor in aspect or little ornamental where man had not interfered, it is a sign that the conditions of existence were and are such that no better results had as yet become possible, or that the germs of a higher order had not yet found their way to those regions.

In recent years numerous reports of disastrous floods find their way into all newspapers, as occurring in the old and the new world, Australia not excepted. Why is it that these floods are now so destructive or even disastrous, while in the earlier periods of colonisation they were not so? Meteorologists prove that then as now the same average of rain fell, abundant rainfalls alternating with deficient ones. How and why is it that the effect of floods and droughts is now so much more disastrous for plant and animal life, and often ruinous for man? Let us question the past.

The earlier settler found everywhere the country more or less well clothed with some kind of perennial (notably woody) vegetation, the soil loose and porous, the banks of watercourses thickly overgrown and lined with shrubs. When the rain or waterspout descended over hill or plain, the water found numberless obstacles on its road to the lower levels, and had to flow slowly. Hence a large proportion soaked into the sieve-like soil to be saved and stored as reserve supply. The remainder, reaching the bed of creek or river gradually, could also only advance slowly, because obstructed by the rank vegetation lining the banks. Here again opportunities were afforded for abundant soakage and loss of volume. When reaching the level ground, the limpid or but slightly muddy flood-waters arrived with small momentum, and so much reduced in mass, that they could do little harm. The flow lasted also much longer than now, and much more drained, therefore, into the ground, enabling it to resist subsequent droughts much longer.

Now the hills are more or less completely denuded of the despised "scrub," the ground hard and firm, the surface bare, or bearing a mere apology for grass the greater part of the year, the beds of watercourses devoid or nearly so of all obstructions. The plains, unless very sandy, are worse; the soil more or less impervious, either wholly or beyond the shallow scratching of the plough. Both deeply dried-out and strongly heated by week's and months of fierce sunshine, the very air in contact with it is aglow, and absorbs the last particles of moisture, killing the remnants of vegetation or the cultivated protegees of man. The rain or thunderstorm descends; down it rushes unobstructed from the hillsides, carrying with it part of the still remaining fertile surface soil. Of the precious moisture, a very small proportion finds its way into the ground, and to very slight depths. The larger volume gets mud-(fertility) laden into creek and river. Rushing along the cleared unobstructed bed it gathers volume and momentum rapidly, and carries destruction instead of blessings to the low-lying level, where it becomes heaped up much faster, than it can escape. Here the mud is deposited, choking every crevice of the soil and making it impervious. Every hollow becomes a stagnant pool. Slowly evaporating, the water leaves all the salt it brought from the higher ground, and this accumulating in the course of years renders the soil gradually but inevitably more and more sterile without hope of redemption, except (where possible) by costly drainage works.

Thus we have ruined our country by denuding hills and plains of all trees and shrubs under the idea of improving pastures and fields, and have destroyed their fertility by overlooking the fact that trees and shrubs are not only in the world for firewood and timber, for shade, or ornament, at our convenience, but to create and maintain conditions permitting man to exist. It is a mistake to suppose that man can prosper or even maintain his existence with merely that limited range of vegetable and animal life administering directly to his or their wants. He, as a link in nature, although the most powerful for evil, is as dependent upon the sum of their united aid, as they are upon him for toleration to live-belief or unbelief notwithstanding.

V.—Real and imaginary or artificial value of Trees.

The excessive development of modes of thought derived from the trading habits of the people has originated the idea that everything must have some money value, and that everything that has no market price is valueless. Although perfectly true so far as manufactured articles, mechanical or automatic labour is concerned, the calculation becomes faulty or wholly erroneous beyond these, notably when living men or objects are considered. The idea is due to mental shortsightedness, acquired by exclusive devotion to selfish acquisition of the means of living or of riches, which leaves neither leisure nor inclination or power for anything beyond.

In a recent law case expert valuators, lawyers, and judges, agreed in declaring the woods of some beautiful hillsides as next to valueless, because the selling-price as timber or firewood would not repay the cost of clearing and carting away. From their standpoint they were undoubtedly right, and I am afraid it is also that from which the large majority of the people judge our singular Australian woods and heaths. But is that standpoint the right one? Did it ever strike any of the learned and unlearned, who adopt it, that that which may be valueless in an auction mart as a dead object may be of priceless value while alive? Do we, for example, value persons at the market price of their dead bodies? As absurd as this artificial valuation is in the case of living men, so inadmissible (because false) is it in the case of living trees and plants. Upon the unappreciated real value, however-as outlined above-depends not only all future prosperity, but the very existence of the people, and not upon the law and comparatively unimportant pecuniary returns. Dreaming of a glorious and mighty future, we destroy blindly its very possibility by overlooking the prime functions of living trees and shrubs.

VI.-Mistakes about Land.

The bulk of the land, clay and sand, cannot grow corn, nor is fertility a property of mineral matter, as many people appear to think; nor will the Almighty pervert His appointed laws of nature to shield the ignorantlytransgressing from the effects of their deliberate actions. As little as the plea of "not having known" is accepted in a court of law, so little-or much less-is it available in the domain of nature. She aids those that work with her and finally crushes those that go against her. Man as a part of her may act as her steward within certain limits-never unpunished presume to be her "God!" "Why, without cutting down trees no cultivation is possible," it will be said. True, but the mistake is (1) in clearing all the land which promises ever so precarious a crop, and (2) that no grass will grow

where trees do, when some, or the larger part would be perfectly legitimate. The writer has seen hundreds of square miles of mallee lands turned into hopeless desert for the sake of eking out a precarious living by the sale of firewood at 2s. to 3s., or less, per ton, and enjoying a bonfire of the rest of the vegetation; also, stately forests wholly destroyed by ringing or felling, or firing, "to make grass grow better," instead of only a portion, to let in more light. As a fact, the writer has always seen the most luxurious grass in the shelter and shade of more or less distantly-placed large trees, especially where moderate moisture prevailed, so as to permit the early decay of the débris, while much of the land graced by stately stringybark forests or mallee is wholly unfit for any pasture grasses or fodder, and after being wholly denuded will never grow pasture grasses or herbs.

It is also a mistake that all good land must be available for the growth of cereals, &c. For good and valuable timber good land is as necessary as for good crops of wheat, grass, or other choice products. Even in countries. with such deep rich soils, moist and temperate climate, and extremely favourable constitution for continual cropping as central and eastern Europe, it is considered by those who have studied the whole question that one-third of the area should be kept under forest or heath vegetation; for the drier parts of Australia one-half would not be too much. In that case the other half would be enabled to support a larger population with more varied ways of living by producing larger and less variable crops than now or in the future can be counted upon-if rationally treated and cultivated.

It should never have been forgotten, and now most strongly insisted on, that trees and shrubs are not interlopers and luxuries, but the only natural rejuvenators of the soil available for man when distributed over large areas, to save and store up the life-creating and retaining solar energy; that artificial manures besides being costly, cannot act advantageously in barren soil; and that stable manures (good when rightly applied), represent only the less valuable portions of fertility returned to the soil, while the more precious one is being constantly removed; also that cropping, grazing, fallowing and burning over (by fire or sun) sterilises the soil in dry climates, only in different ways and degrees of intensity, as much or more than cropping and depasturing.

Lastly, it is a grave mistake to suppose that all plants not useful as fodder or even hurtful to stock, should be eradicated. The fact is, that without their intermixture and shelter, the useful ones soon become extinct, and nothing but a howling waste is left.

VII.-Suggestions How the Country should be Farmed.

In view of the undeniable deterioration of pastures and fields since years, and the very doubtful prospects of any, except temporary or locally-limited, change in the future, the question arises-could this have been avoided? Can anything be done to arrest the progress of the sterilisation of the country at large? And how is agriculture to be conducted to restore, conserve, and augment the fertility, that is, the producing power of the land under Australian conditions? The first two questions can be answered in the affirmative with certain qualifications, and answers to the third can be theoretically deduced from that which has been stated already, the practical carrying into effect of the implied reforms depending entirely upon the intelligence and willingness of the occupiers of the soil.

If the first settlers had thoroughly understood the inter-relation of plants and fertility, provision could easily have been made to conserve a due pro

portion of forest (and heath) land, and such devoted to tilling and pasture by an intelligent and wisely determined Government. By reserving large domains of wooded areas alternating with such alienated for cultivation, some easy and effective means would have been provided, not only for conserving the fertility of the latter much longer through better (because more concentrated) culture, but also for again readily reforesting exhausted patches, and in their stead resume an equivalent of the forest land. A clause might also have been inserted in the Constitution, making it compulsory for owners of large estates to keep a certain proportion under wood. As, however, this was not understood, owing to faulty education, and woody vegetation mostly looked upon as so much useless lumber even by the intellectual leaders, wholesale and often wholly uncalled-for destruction was indulged in, nay, paid for as improvement.

It must be borne in mind, that under our climatic conditions scarcely any but our own vegetation will (or perhaps, can) resist permanently the effects of our terrible droughts and still more destructive fires, by which (especially the latter) all foreign introductions are killed. Moreover, many plants need certain insects for cross-fertilisation so as to produce healthy seeds, and a set of birds, &c., to keep the insects in check. All this existed in perfect adjustment, and might have been preserved by proper instruction of the people through school, pulpit, and papers, backed by the influence, example, and power of the State. Foreign introductions of woody plants, except a few highly objectionable ones, like the briar, only thrive as long as protected by man, being either unable to propagate freely, or unable to resist the extremes of the Australian climate.

All this being left out of consideration at the start, nothing was done to provide for the future; the country has gradually drifted to the verge of becoming a hopeless desert, like most parts of Palestine, Arabia, Persia, North Africa, and even Spain, with similar climates and soils like our own, which history proves to have been thickly wooded, &c., when supporting great nations and high civilisations.

Can anything be done to avert this fate? Yes; if the people are willing to adopt the ways and methods of nature; not otherwise, that is, ever persisting in the routine of the past until too late. The dissemination of correct and precise instruction by all possible channels and means, through schools, from the pulpit and platform, and by the medium of public prints, is a sine qua non to create a public opinion in the right direction, and a first step. Then all wastefulness and needless or mischievous destruction of growing timber and "scrub" by fire, cutting down, or ringing should be forbidden, rigidly prosecuted and punished, whether perpetrated by the uneducated and careless woodcutter or wealthy tenant of Crown lands. Then a law should be passed making it compulsory for every occupier of rural land above a certain moderate area to keep a part under wood, or if no wood be on the land to form and plant such. This being of vital importance to the country and the people at large, though in many cases, perhaps, against individual interests in the present groove of practice, it should be aided and encouraged by bonus, advance of money at low interest or none at all, the State holding a lien on such lands until the purpose and aim has been accomplished and the obligations fulfilled. No large tree should be allowed to be cut unless by the sanction of the ranger, duly marked and registered, while younger trees should only be removed in thinning out. In thinly-wooded regions no aged living tree on roads and waysides should be cut at all unless replaced by a dozen young ones, to allow for premature death of most thereof. The large trees serve as most valuable centres from which to

extend wood culture, and without which it is often extremely difficult to establish forests or shrubberies. The preference should always be given to Australian species, because they are equal to the probable vicissitudes, especially eucalypts, always using a mixture of species, viz., such specially valuable or only fit as shelter plants or firewood, or simply ornamental, for one protects the other. For most dry parts of South Australia, Eucalyptus leucoxylon, white (or blue) gum is, perhaps, the hardiest for clay soils in low situations; next, the peppermint (E. odorata). Conifers are only suitable where the subsoil contains much water, as in sandy areas or near swamps. For limestone subsoils the various kinds of "mallee" are unsurpassable.

It may be said, and is sure to be forcibly advanced, that what is proposed will not pay. Most likely not under the present system of exhausting and plundering the soil, and waste of the products thereof; but in reply, the question may be asked: Will it pay the people to convert the country into a howling desert, destitute of life? And this is the goal our present system leads to. There is no practical difficulty in sketching the outlines of a system of agriculture, &c., in combination with proper wood culture, but the subject being so comprehensive, is reserved for some future time or an abler