642 SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 
like that an inexperienced person would pass them by as not fit for 
his sheep; and yet, as Mr. Samuel Dixon* has well shown, these plants 
are of high nutritive value and are attractive to flocks. 
Relegating to the foot-notes, brief descriptions of a few of the fodder 
plants suggested for use in dry districts, I shall now mention the salt 
bushes of various sorts, and the allied desert plants of Australia as 
worth a careful trial on some of our very dry regions in the farthest 
west. There are numerous other excellent fodder plants adapted to dry 
but not parched areas which can be brought in from the corresponding 
districts of the southern hemisphere and from the Kast. 
At an earlier stage of this address,t I have had occasion to refer to 
Baron Von Mueller, whose efforts looking towards the introduction of 
useful plants into Australasia have been aided largely by his convenient 
treatise on economic plants. It may be said in connection with the 
fodder plants, especially, that much which the Baron has written can 
be applied mutatis mutandis to parts of our own country. 
Theimportantsubject of introducing fodder plants has been purposely 
reserved to the last because it permits us to examine a practical point 
of great interest. This is the caution which it is thought necessary 
to exercise when a species is transferred by our own choice from one 
country to another. I say, by our choice, for whether we wish it or not 
certain plants will introduce themselves. In these days of frequent 
and intimate inter-communication between different countries the exclu- 
sion of foreign plants is simply impossible. Our common weeds are 
striking illustrations of the readiness with which plants of one country 
* Mr. Samuel Dixon’s list is in vol. vat (for 1884-85) of the Transactions and Pro- 
ceedings and Report of the Royal Society of South Australia. Adelaide, G. Robertson, 
1886. Bursaria spinosa, ‘‘a good stand-by,” after the grasses dry up. Pomaderris 
racemosa, ‘‘stands stocking well.” Pittosporum phyllaeroides, ‘sheep exceedingly 
partial to its foliage.” Casuarina quadrivalvis, ‘‘tenderness of fiber, wool would be 
represented by it in our finer wool districts.” Acacias, The Wattles; ‘‘ value as an 
astringent, very great,” being curative of a malady often caused by eating frozen 
grass. Acacia aneura (mulga); ‘‘must be very nutritious to all animals eating it.” 
This is the plant which is such a terror to the stockmen who have to ride through 
the ‘“‘serub.” Cassia, some of the species with good pods and leaves forsheep. The 
foregoing are found in districts which are not wholly arid. The following are more 
properly “dry” plants. Sida petrophila, ‘‘as much liked by sheep as by marsupials. ” 
Dodonaea viscosa, Native Hop-bush; ‘likes warm, red, sandy ground.” Lycium aus- 
trale, ‘‘drought never seems to affect it.” Kochia aphylla: ‘“ All kinds of stock are 
otten largely dependent on it during protracted droughts.” Rhagodia parabolica: 
“Produces a good deal of foliage.” Atriplex vesicaria: ‘Can be readily grown 
wherever the climate isnot too wet.” Ihave transferred only those which Mr. Dixon 
thinks most worthy of trial. Compare also Dr. Vasey’s valuable studies of the plants 
of our dry lands, especially Grasses and forage plants (1878), Grasses of the arid dis- 
tricts of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado (1886), Grasses of the South (1887). 
t See foot-note at pages 617, 618. 
