BY J. BANCROFT, ESQ., M.D. 71 
organs which we find on apple, pear, peach, plum, and the 
- great group of deciduous fruit trees; and as much of the scien- 
tific treatment of the stems of these trees depends on the correct 
knowledge of the functions of lenticels. Lenticels begin 
to open out between the fall of the leaf and the formation of 
new foliage. All greasy applications tend to close up these 
respiratory apertures, and lichenous growths starting amongst 
their corky cells seriously injure the growth of the tree. 
Having made these few remarks concerning the past history 
of the Queensland Philosophical Society, and some of the work 
that it accomplished, I shall now speak of a few Australian 
_affairs that interest us, after which I shall conclude with some 
local matters deserving of notice. Taking a general view of 
its position we find Australia occupying an increasing import- 
ance in the concerns of the British Empire, not so much by 
having contributed a handful of troops to assist the mother- 
country in the Egyptian occupation, but by giving extensive 
employment to British commercial energies, supplying the 
old country with meat, gold (not to mention other metals), 
grain, and, what is more than all these, homes for the homeless 
population of Great Britain to an extent surpassed by no other 
country on the face of the globe. The frozen meat trade, chiefly 
from New Zealand, now makes a perceptible impression in the 
supply of animal food for the city of London; and although 
the tinned, salted, and dried meats of former years have fallen 
into unmerited neglect, not satisfying the prejudices of the 
people, we may yet expect great results from them to both pro- 
ducers and consumers, filling up wants that no freezing process 
can supply. The boiling-down of thousands of prime animals 
for their tallow alone has become a thing of the past, which it 
will never again be necessary to have recourse to. The export 
of Australian wool gives much occupation for shipping, and as 
the country becomes more settled, and the production of fodder 
and the supply of water become better understood, much greater 
