582 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
SOME ASPECTS OF TASMANIAN FORESTRY. 
By H. J. Cotsourn, Holder of the Special Forestry 
Certificate of the Institute of Surveyors, London, and 
Life Member by Examination of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England. 
In his report for the year 1898 upon the “ Forests of Tas- 
mania: Their Conservation and Future Management,” the 
late Mr. G. R. Perrin made the following statement : —“ The 
condition of Tasmanian forests is infinitely worse to-day 
than it was at the date of my report in 1886 and 1887. 
Another decade of waste, of private monopoly, of fierce 
bush-fires, of neglect by the Government to check the 
damage to public property, must ultimately result in 
disaster to the industries and thousands of people dependent 
upon the timber resources of the Colony.” He further 
pointed out the fact that available timber is getting scarcer 
year by year in the contiguous Australasian States, which 
he estimated would become exhausted of their timber sup- 
plies within 20 years, unless recuperative measures are 
adopted; also, that large markets for timber were opening 
out in other parts of the world, in consequence of which 
opportunities would be afforded for ensuring a much more 
rapid depletion of the forests of Tasmania than has hitherto 
been the case. It is highly probable, therefore, ihat this, 
combined with the reckless waste heretofore rampant, will 
eventually seriously menace the development of the mining 
industry of the country (from lack of timber for woodwork- 
construction in connection with the mines), if steps are not 
taken for the more careful economisation of the existing 
forests, and the reproduction of the devastated ones upon 
land unfit from its nature or position for other purposes 
than timber-growing. 
In the three years which have elapsed since Mr. Perrin’s 
report was published, a steady revival of industrial com- 
merce has taken place in most parts of the world, affecting 
British, and, consequently, Australasian interests. This re- 
vival appears to be influencing the timber trade consider- 
ably, and in all probability, especially when the South 
African war is terminated, the Tasmanian timber industry 
will assume proportions of greatly increased magnitude, 
more particularly, it is anticipated, in the production of 
railway sleepers, of which a considerable number have 
