410 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Nov. 



Good Use for Trees. — A portion of the report of the "Woods and 

 Forests Department of South Australia is devoted to the interesting 

 subject of planting railway lines and station yards. What reader 

 will not wish with all his heart that the report applied to his own 

 country ? Whatever can be said in favour of railroads — and surely 

 enough has been said in their favour to entitle the other side to an 

 occasional innings — they are, to say the least of it, the very 

 abomination of ugliness — hideous in themselves, and the cause of 

 hideousness wherever they go. Yet, to judge from South Australian 

 experiences, there is no reason why nature should be unable to 

 protect herself to a very considerable extent from her omnipotent 

 invader. Experience has already shown that the trees hitherto 

 planted have flourished, — at one place to the extent of 85 per cent. 

 of those planted ; and the general success has encouraged the Govern- 

 ment to spend a further sum of over £1000 upon continuing and 

 extending operations generally. Altogether 15,000 trees are success- 

 fully engaged in the work of hiding or only less effectually adorning the 

 lines and stations. Unquestionably a grove of Eucalyptus, Pinaster 

 Tamarisk, or Cedar — some of the varieties enumerated — must be 

 considerably more pleasant for the eye of the passer-by to rest upon 

 than an altogether unveiled heap of apparent litter, or even than 

 that forlorn and pathetic would-be oasis, the station garden. Pro- 

 bably also the health of those ghastly territories, the railway suburbs 

 and slums, would be rendered far more healthy and habitable, as well 

 as less unsightly, by becoming centres of arboriculture. The worst 

 of the matter, however, is that it costs money; and we fear that 

 British railway companies are not so far advanced in their ideas as 

 the Government of South Australia. 



Mahogany Culture in India. — Great attention is, we learn from 

 the report of a meeting of the Committee of the Agri-Horticultural 

 Society of Madras of February last, being given to the introduction 

 of mahogany (Swietenia Mahogani) into India. There are many 

 trees of considerable age already in various parts of the country, and 

 although the climate is very different to that of its native habitats 

 in the West Indies, it appears to thrive admirably, and to make 

 timber of first-rate quality. The timber of some trees blown down 

 in the cyclone of 1864 in the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, is said 

 to have brought " extreme prices." The tree appears to be easily 

 established, but numbers are difficult to procure, owing to the 

 scarcity of seed, and the fact that it does not long retain its vitality. 

 It is not a free bearer of seed even in its own country, and in the 



