FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE. O 



item in the budget of any country, but of paramount impor- 

 tance to a small State like yours. If the export value of 

 other agricultural products, which is returned as being about 

 £454,054 (including wool) be added, we have an annual 

 total export value of £734,042, or 28 12 per cent, of the 

 whole total export value of every description from Tasmania, 

 and next in importance to the mineral export, valued at 

 £1,640,778. So much for agriculture. Now let us see how 

 forestry figures in these statistics. In a State with such 

 important forests, containing, as I have already informed 

 you, some of the finest timber in quality, and unique in 

 possessing trees of dimensions and specific gravity invaluable 

 for certain important works of construction, it might have 

 been confidently expected that the export value of such 

 produce would form a large asset in your revenue statistics. 

 On examination, however, it appears that this, unfortu- 

 nately, is not the case. In these statistics, in 1900, timber 

 of all descriptions, including bark, only figures for export 

 value as £71,618, but against this there is an item of import 

 value of £23,246 for timber imported, so that this product 

 in reality would only represent a net value of £48,372 really 

 to the credit of your timber account. 



We see, therefore, that Tasmania is importing wood from 

 other countries, principally Norway and Sweden, a distance 

 of about 14,000 miles, amounting to one-third of her own 

 export of timber, and paying at least two-thirds more for it 

 than if it were grown on her ov/n soil. As a matter of fact, 

 it could be grown better on your own waste lands and 

 islands, within a few miles of your principal ports, at a mere 

 nominal expenditure relatively to what it costs you now to 

 import. I think you must admit that it can scarcely be 

 called good business to go to such a distance to procure an 

 article which you could easily have grown in your own country 

 at a saving of 60 per cent, to 70 per cent., with the triple 

 advantage of having sufficient for your home consumption, 

 a large quantity for exportation to the neighbouring States 

 (on which you could make a good profit), and last, but not 

 least, at the same time ameliorating the hygiene of your 

 island by plantations which would collect the rain of which 

 you have, in some districts, so much need. 



Another most regrettable fact gleaned from these statis- 

 tics is that there does not appear tha.t one single log or 

 plank of timber had been exported in 1900 to Great Britain, 

 the largest timber-importing country in the world, and the 

 most important market for all other timber-producing 

 countries in which to dispose of their produce. 



