ON THE TIMBER SUPPLY OP AUSTRALIA. 127 



tons of useful timber were in former years destroyed to make room 

 for the plough ; how, night and day, fires were fed with the giants 

 of the forest, to leave nothing but a heap of ashes, upon which the 

 grain grew luxuriantly, but generally became blighted. In other 

 instances, where the timber trees stood more dense, they have 

 been only girdled by the axe, and left standing upon cultivated 

 fields, their whitened trunks being a sad spectacle by day, and 

 looking like huge spectres on a moonlight night. These trees, 

 while green, represented perhaps a greater value, and were more 

 important to the State than the produce of all the grain crops 

 which may have been grown on these fields since the settler took 

 possession of his land. I myself did err twenty and more years 

 ago, before I became better acquainted with other treeless portions 

 of South Australia. A settler who finds himself in the middle of 

 a well-wooded tract of country naturally has no other idea than to 

 get rid of the timber somehow, and at the smallest amount of 

 trouble and expense, and the consideration of the national welfare 

 is with him out of the question. The mischief being done, never- 

 theless, should act as a warning ; and in such parts of the colony 

 where it is found desirable to protect the timber either for the 

 necessities of future generations or for climatic advantages, it 

 will be important to prevent the ringing of trees by all possible 

 means short of an absolute prohibition. I hope the farmers of the 

 day do not waste so much : and that if they grub and destroy, they 

 will find time, and also a suitable place on the farm, along the 

 boundary lines of their holdings or different fields, along water- 

 courses, around wells, reservoirs, and homesteads, and in their 

 permanent grazing paddocks, where they will plant again. If 

 they have no other example nearer their home, let them look at 

 the plantations of native and other trees on the Adelaide Park 

 lands, how well they grow. It has been suggested that the plant- 

 ing of a certain number of forest trees should be made one of the 

 conditions to be inserted in all agreements with the selectors of land 

 on credit ; and that no Crown grant should be given to any person 

 who has not planted and properly tended such number of trees on 

 his selection. Such a condition, if carried out — and I am inclined 

 to think it can be as well reported upon by Mr Bonney and his 

 subordinates as other improvements — would be of incalculable 

 value to the whole colony, and especially to the farmer himself, or 

 his family, in after-years. Still, we ought to hesitate. Intending 

 settlers may see in this another objection to our land law. It may 



