TASMANIAN TIMBEKS. 37 



difficulty is experienced in walking through it. In the 

 forests the reverse is the case. The soil may be of tlhe 

 richest - or poorest description, but, thanks to the humid 

 atmosphere, due to the proximity of the sea in every direc- 

 tion, and the fact that the mountain peaks of Tasmania 

 draw down the rain-clouds sweeping up from the Southern 

 Ocean, the prodigality of growth is equalled only in tropical 

 regions. In many cases not a foot of soil can be seen, so 

 dense is this wealth of foliage. The ground is covered with 

 cat-head fern (Aspidium aculeatum) from one to two feet 

 in height, or with " lady " fern (Pteris incisa) rising to three 

 or four feet. Above these rise the '' tree " ferns (Dicksonia 

 antarctica and Alsophila australis), growing from four to 

 eighteen feet in height. Above these rise the smaller trees 

 locally termed " scrub," though their height ranges from 

 'ten to forty feet or more, their diameter being from three 

 to twelve inches — the M.usk (^01 earia argophylla), Dogwood 

 (Fomaderris apetala), Wooden Pear {Hakea acicularis) , Sas- 

 safras (^Atherosperma moschata), and several minor species, 

 soine of them flowering shrubs. Above all this wealth of 

 foliage rise the timber trees, straight in grain, because they 

 have to struggle upwards to the sunlight (which rarely falls 

 on the lower growi^h of ferns), and branchless until they 

 have far overtopped the scrub below them. These forest 

 giants are confined to the Eucalypti, or " Hardwoods," of 

 Tasmania, the Myrtle, though it attains a large girth, not 

 being so lofty. 



The principal agricultural districts in this State have been 

 " carved " out of the primeval forest. To the agricultural 

 settler the timber, so valuable elsewhere, is (except such as 

 he requires for buildings, fences, &c.), the bane of his exist- 

 ence, and his whole energy is devoted to destroying it with 

 axe and fire. Fortunately for the timber, the inhabitants 

 have so far been too few to appreciably diminish the 

 immense extent of forest with which the Island is covered. 

 Tasmania has until of recent years been far from a market, 

 but the knitting together of the countries of the world by 



