a 
TASMANIAN FORESTRY. 591 
branches, leaves, and tops at once, as they cut them down. 
Light a good bright fire to start with, after having made a 
safe place for it, and then begin cutting away, and as you 
cut, throw upon the fire at once; children will help 
immensely with the light-stuff, and willingly too. The fire 
once well started, everything will burn up, the green wood 
and the sap running out, and the green leaves too, not only 
those of “fir trees, but of every hardwood tree. As you 
throw in the branches the whole of the green leaves upon 
them catch fire simultaneously, with a sudden flash, and 
burn up with a crackling sound as if they had been steeped 
in grease. 
“T have often done it, frequently in wet weather. We 
get rid immediately of all the light inflammable material, 
from which the greatest danger of bush fires is to be 
apprehended ; the larger branches and trunks of trees, if 
you must burn them (which you ought not), present little 
danger of fire in dealing with them. When you get incon- 
veniently distant from your first fire, you light a second 
one, and let your first one burn out. It is remarkable that 
those fires generally burn down to the ground more 
thoroughly than the carefully constructed piles that have 
been drying up for a whole year.” 
State NURSERY. 
The establishment of a State forest nursery has been 
suggested; and this, if started, would prove a valuable 
means for disseminating useful exotic trees all over the 
country, as well as for the growth of evergreens for shelter 
planting and other purposes. 
The encouragement of tree-planting for shelter is highly 
important in districts which have been denuded of their 
native woodlands. Stock are kept warmer during inclement 
weather, and crops are less lable to suffer from wind and 
frost, when suitably protected by trees. 
Also, the embellishment of homesteads with ornamental 
trees, apart from the pleasure conferred, must really, in 
many cases, be looked upon as a remunerative investment, 
for properties beautified in this way are always, other things 
being equal, more saleable. 
Numerous kinds of trees likely to be of great economic 
value in the future might be raised, and plantations after- 
wards formed of them in appropriate situations; or they 
might be distributed over the country amongst those who 
would be disposed to utilise them. 
