30 Robinson, In the Dandenong Ranges 60 Years Ago. [^"^ju„^''^' 



IN THE DANDENONG RANGES SIXTY YEARS AGO. 

 By G. W. Robinson, C.E. 

 (Communicated by C. French, F.E.S.) 

 {dead before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, loth April, 191 1.) 

 During the early years of this State — say, from 1854 to 

 1862, the period I was best acquainted with the Dandenong 

 Ranges — pahngs and shingles were in great demand for building 

 and roofing purposes, galvanized iron being at that time almost 

 unknown. The Dandenong Ranges, being within compara- 

 tively easy distance of Melbourne, soon became one of the 

 principal sources of supply. The paling-splitter invariably 

 chose the tallest and straightest trees for his purposes ; but to 

 get at them in the recesses of the ranges meant cutting tracks 

 through scrub often sixty feet in height. 



When staying in 1854 ^^ ^ farm-house about seven or eight 

 miles from the locality since known as Emerald, I well re- 

 member a paling-splitter coming to the farm and giving an 

 account of some immensely tall trees, which, he said, were over 

 one hundred yards in length when felled, and describing the 

 staging which it was necessary to erect before they could be 

 cut down. I was greatly interested in his story, and wanted 

 there and then to go and see them, but was informed that the 

 place was so inaccessible and remote from any habitation that 

 it would not be safe for me to make the attempt alone. How- 

 ever, three years later I had an opportunity of visiting the 

 spot, and, from what I could see then, the paling-splitter had 

 not exaggerated in the least. The difficulty was to get a good 

 view of the full height of the remaining trees, owing to the 

 density of the surrounding vegetation. If the butts could be 

 seen the tops were invisible, and vice versa ; hence the im- 

 possibility of measuring their height accurately. It was seldom 

 that a tree had a well-defined head ; most of them seemed to 

 suffer in the topmost branches from a sort of " die-back," such 

 as may sometimes be noticed in fruit trees. On fallen trees 

 this "die-back" often measured thirty feet or more, emd 

 affected stems up to nine inches in diameter, while in many 

 trees the tops had been so long dead that, when felled, they 

 crumbled into pieces, and so rendered accurate measurement 

 impossible. 



In the neighbourhood was a thick forest of young trees,, about 

 60 feet high, growing so close together that, when waving to 

 and fro in the wind, they looked like a gigantic crop of corn. 



I could see it would onl}' be a matter of a few years before most 

 of the best trees would be cut out, so I arranged with the 

 splitters to let me know whenever they felled an extra big tree, 

 so that I could go and measure it when cut down. It was 



