26 president's address. 



allow. They " are now grown in America, especially in South- 

 western United States, more extensively than any other exotic 

 forest tree," says Prof. McClatchie. 



Of the strides which Eucalyptus-culture has made and is 

 making, and of its rapid rate of growth, you will be able to judge 

 almost at a glance by comparing two books on the table before 

 you —one the pioneering work, in a literary sense, of Ellwood 

 Cooper entitled "Forest Culture and Eucalyptus Trees," pub- 

 lished in 1876; the other the elaborate and most attractively 

 illustrated work of Professor A. J. McClatchie, entitled " Euca- 

 lypts cultivated in the United States," published in 1902, by the 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture. 



Much the same sort of story can be told about American 

 enterprise in regard to Acacias and Saltbushes. For the sake of 

 brevity I shall content myself with mentioning the verdict of the 

 late Prof. Myers, Director of the West Virginia Experimental 

 Station, who said — " I have no connection with the University 

 of California, but I have been greatly interested in their experi- 

 ments with Australian Saltbush (Atriplex semihaccata). The 

 work of the California Experiment Station in introducing and 

 developing this plant for the use of the farmers of California is 

 worth more to the State than the entire Experiment Station has 

 cost since its beginning, or will cost for the next fifty years." 



Such developments as I have very imperfectly and briefly 

 indicated — the enterprise, the patience, the foresight, the strictly 

 scientific basis of work, the keen appreciation of the value of 

 knowledge — surely all this jnay be fairly commended to the 

 notice of Australia as an object lesson. If Americans value so 

 highly and treat so handsomely certain Australian plants which 

 they have acclimatised only by a great expenditure of trouble, 

 time and money; how, one may ask, do we value Nature's freely 

 given resources, and what sort of treatment do we mete out to 

 them ? This only will I say. If as a community we, and our 

 rulers, had a truer insight into the importance of knowledge, and 

 a keener appreciation of its value, how differently some things 

 would be done, or would have been done, in New South Wales 

 and I might even say in Australia. 



