806 Agricidtural Journal of Victoria. 



Poultry are one of the most important minor products of the farm,, 

 and there is money in them if properly attended to. 



Forestry Branch. 



The Forestry Branch was transferred to the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment a year ago, and I have, in addition to my other duties, acted as 

 Conservator of Forests during that period. I have now, consequently, 

 a good idea of the troubles that exist in that Branch. They are 

 princi]ially political. Everyone who wants a concession, or imagines 

 he has a grievance, approaches the Member for the district, who in 

 turn makes representations to the Minister. This makes it exceed- 

 ingly difficult for the Minister to prevent shrinkage, and even more 

 difhcult to increase the revenue. The fault lies with a number of 

 interested people. 



The royalty charges are altogether too low, and are an infinitesimal 

 part of the ultimate price paid for sawn timber by the consumer. In 

 fact the charges are so low that it is not possible to obtain sufficient 

 money for the purpose of supervising the forests. It would be 

 absurd to expect the State to find the money for the management of 

 a Branch which ought to be yielding a substantial revenue. The 

 receipts at present are over £15,000 a year, and without much 

 difficulty these could be increased by £5,000 a year. A substantial 

 balance would then be paid to general revenue after providing for 

 the proper supei'vision of the forests. This is likely to be done after 

 careful enquiry has been made as to the position and circumstances 

 of each saw mill. 



As to what might be done I will take two examples ; first, the 

 Healesville and Warburton districts from which comes two-thirds of 

 the sawn hardwood consumed in Melbourne. This timber, by a 

 general arrangement amongst the saw-millers, is sold at 8s. per 

 hundred feet super., and the net profit is 2s. 2d. per hundred feet from 

 timber from the Healesville district, and Is. 2d. for that from the 

 Warburton district. The sources from which I obtained this infor- 

 mation are reliable, and I am assured that this is an average profit 

 after paying for all expenses of conversion from the tree in the 

 forest, freight, cartage, commission, royalty, etc., etc. 



The royalty charged by Government is only 2d. per hundred feet, 

 or one-thirteenth part of the profit on Healesville timber and one- 

 seventh on that of Warburton. It is therefore perfectly clear that if 

 double the royalty were charged the price of sawn hardwood need not 

 necessarily be increased to the consumer. 



The second example which I will take is the abnormally low 

 royalty paid on red gum. In Victoria 5s. per thousand feet is the 

 royalty, whilst in New South Wales on the other side of the Murray 15s. 

 is charged. At onetime the Victorian royalty was 10s. per thousand, 

 and was reduced to 5s. when the Minister for Lands at the time was 

 member for the district where much of the red gum was cut. I 

 could give numerous other examples of low charges, but think this. 



