278 THE FARTHER NORTH THE BEST SEEDS? [Fee. 



of West Australia. He had known ships built of jarrah which had 

 sailed for twenty or thirty years without any copper, and he himself 

 was working ligliters which had Ijeen in use fully that time which 

 had never been coppered. This timber would not grow on good 

 soil, only where there Avas ironstone, tons' weight of which were 

 sometimes lifted Ijy the roots. The more ironstone there was in 

 the soil, and the higher the elevation, the better the trees grew. 



Mr. Page asked Mr. Simpson if anything were known as to the 

 action of jarrah wood on iron. As it had Ijeen proposed to sheathe 

 steel ships with it, it was important to know whether, seeing it 

 contained so much tannic acid, it would act at all on iron nails. 



Mr. Simpson said he would give not merely his own experience 

 but that of various shipbuilders, collected by Mr. Manning, Govern- 

 ment Engineer of Western Australia. It was one of the most 

 remarkalile facts connected with this timber, that if you put a bolt, 

 no matter what size it might be, into it, when you took it out, a 

 bolt of precisely the same size would go into the hole again. The 

 effect of the iron, apparently, was to preserve the timber, and of the 

 timber to preserve the iron. A slight black skin was formed 

 between the two, and the iron appeared to remain as perfect as 

 ■when put in. He had seen on the Fish Eock, at Freemantle, the 

 whole of the guy chains supporting the beacon there entirely 

 perished, and the copper fittings likewise ; but the pole itself was 

 found quite perfect, when examined, though it had been standing 

 twenty-two years. Mr. Story, of Sunderland, and other shipbuilders, 

 said jarrah was far superior to teak ; it was less liable to split, and 

 it wound bend freely, and without lieing steamed. 



Tir£ FARTHER NORTH THE BEST SEEDS? 



SUCH is the practical experience of the agriculturists of Sweden 

 and Norway ; and they prefer new seed from the northern 

 regions of these countries ; while culturists in Central Europe 

 begin to homologate these Scandinavian experiences, electing to 

 get their new seed from as far north as possible. The cereals are 

 not the only exceptional instances of this law that plants develop 

 more easily from seed grown in high latitudes ; it affects forest 

 products. Indeed, Professor Schiibler of Christiania has for thirty 

 years been working out this phenomenon of vegetable physiology 

 as developed in such northern regions. He has found that a plant 

 transplanted from the south to the north to a district where, 

 perchance, the mean average temperature is perceptibly lower, in a 

 few years reaches its perfect development in a much shorter time 



