TASMANIAN FORESTRY. 583 
recently been exported to South Africa. Such a time is 
therefore a very appropriate one for calling attention to 
the subject of the forestry of the country, and to point out 
some of the leading factors which must be taken into con- 
sideration in formulating any scheme of forest conservation 
at all likely to meet with success. 
To go minutely into the details of forest management 
would make my paper unnecessarily long, and serve no 
useful purpose upon the present occasion. I will therefore 
confine myself, as far as possible, to a few of the leading 
features of the subject, which may be considered, so to 
speak, from one point of view, since from their mutual in- 
terdependence they cannot well be dissociated. 
I will speak in the first place of some of the chief prin- 
ciples, the understanding of which is necessary for the carry- 
ing out of any successful scheme of forest management. 
One of these, and that a cardinal one, is the preservation of 
the leafy canopy of the forest, and I would now say a few 
words explanatory of what this involves. ) 
Forest trees make little demand, in comparison with farm 
crops, upon the resources of the soil, provided the leaves 
which periodically fall from them are allowed to decay upon 
the spot, thereby contributing to that accumulation of par- 
tially-decomposed vegetable matter which, as it gradually 
becomes mingled with the soil through the action of earth- 
worms and other natural agencies, goes by the name of 
humus. This humus is a valuable reserve of plant-food, 
containing, as it does, all that enters into the composition of 
the tree or plant from which it has been derived. Unless 
present in excess, as sometimes happens in cold and humid 
localities, the amount of it to be found in the soil, at any 
time, may be taken as a fair criterion of its fertility. In 
agricultural language, a soil possessing an abundant supply 
of humus would be said to be in good heart or condition. 
Apart, however, from its power to contribute to plant-nutri- 
tion, humus exercises physical influences which are probably 
of even greater importance. I allude to the great capacity 
it possesses for absorbing and retaining moisture and im- 
proving the mechanical texture of soils. Access of sunshine 
and air to the soil, however, accelerate the decomposition 
of its humus, and so much so, indeed, that a soil denuded of 
its surface vegetation, and fully exposed to atmospheric 
action, very quickly gets into a sterile condition, or at least 
is liable to suffer severely from the effects of drought. 
The maintenance, therefore, of the continuity of the leafy 
canopy of a forest is a matter of first-class importance, in 
