2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shrubs and dwarf trees of the far East, which are sure to find 

 sooner or later a warm welcome among us. 



X. Forage Plants.— Next to the food-plants for man, there 

 is no single class of commercial plants of greater interest than 

 the food-plants for flocks and herds. Forage plants, wild and 

 cultivated, are among the most important and highly valued re- 

 sources of vast areas. No single question is of more vital con- 

 sequence to our farthest West and Southwest. 



It so happens that the plants on which the pastoralist relies 

 grow or are grown on soil of inferior value to the agriculturist. 

 Even soil which is almost sterile may possess vegetation on which 

 flocks and herds may graze; and, further, these animals may 

 thrive in districts where the vegetation appears at first sight too 

 scanty or too forbidding even to support life. There are im- 

 mense districts in parts of the Australian continent where flocks 

 are kept on plants so dry and desert-like that an inexperienced 

 person would pass them by as not fit for his sheep, and yet, as 

 Mr. Samuel Dixon* has well shown, these plants are of high 

 nutritive value and are attractive to flocks. 



Eelegatiug to the notes to be published with this address brief 

 descriptions of a few of the fodder-plants suggested for use in 

 dry districts, I shall now mention the salt-bushes of various sorts, 

 and the allied desert plants of Australia, as worth a careful trial 

 on some of our very dry regions in the farthest West. There are 

 numerous other excellent fodder-plants adapted to dry but not 

 parched areas which can be brought in from the corresponding 

 districts of the southern hemisphere and from the East. 



At an earlier stage of this address I have had occasion to refer 

 to Baron von Mueller, whose efforts looking toward the intro- 



* Mr. Samuel Dixon's list is in vol. viii (for 1884-'85) of the Transactions and Proceed- 

 ings and Report of the Royal Society of South Australia. Adelaide, G. Robertson, 1886. 

 Bursaria spinosa : " A good stand-by," after the grasses dry up. Pomaderris racemosa, 

 " stands stocking well." Pittosporum phyllaeroides : " Sheep exceedingly partial to its 

 foliage." Casuarina quadrivalvis : *' Tenderness of fiber of wool would be prevented by it 

 in our finer wool districts." Acacias, the wattles : " Value as an astringent, very great," 

 being curative of a malady often caused by eating frozen grass. Acacia aneura (mulga) : 

 " Must be very nutritious to all animals eating it." This is the plant which is such a 

 terror to the stockmen who have to ride through the " scrub." Cassia, some of the species 

 with good pods and leaves for sheep. The foregoing are found in districts which are 

 not wholly arid. The following are, more properly, " dry " plants. Sida petrophila : " As 

 much liked by sheep as by marsupials." Dodonwaviscosa, native hop-bush : "Likes warm, 

 red, sandy ground." Lycium amirale: " Drought never seems to affect it." Kochia aphylla : 

 " All kinds of stock are often largely dependent on it during protracted droughts." 

 Rhagodia parabolica : " Produces a good deal of foliage." Atriplex vesicaria : " Can be 

 readily grown wherever the climate is not too wet." I have transferred only those which 

 Mr. Dixon thinks most worthy of trial. Compare also Dr. Vasey's valuable studies of the 

 plants of our dry lands, especially grasses and forage plants (1878), grasses of the arid 

 districts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado (1886), grasses of the South (1887). 



