THE FORESTS OF AUSTRALIA. 4 1 



of these being at Gosford in New South Wales, and at Macedon 

 and Creswick in Victoria. The trees in the Botanic Gardens at 

 Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney are disappointing. 

 This is inevitable, for they are gardens, not arboretums. Even 

 in the unrivalled Botanic Garden of Sydney, the searcher for 

 good specimens of extra-tropical trees looks in vain. 



The one exception is the Melbourne Botanic Garden. It 

 is larger than the others, and had a tree enthusiast to found 

 it. Baron von Mueller came near to making a national 

 arboretum ; and when Mueller's work was transformed into 

 the glorious garden we see to-day, a large part of Mueller's 

 trees were left. The result is that, amidst all the beauty of the 

 Melbourne garden, the student of extra-tropical trees finds 

 there, at last, a study in trees which exists nowhere else in 

 Australia, and, as far as I know, nowhere else within the extra- 

 tropical climates of this globe. I came to Melbourne intending 

 to stay three weeks; I stopped over two months, and it was 

 mainly the Botanic Garden which kept me ! There is a 

 completeness and beauty in this garden which is marvellous. 



I should like to see its usefulness extended by the introduc- 

 tion of the plan which has been followed with so much success 

 at the British Museum, the National Gallery, and elsewhere 

 in England — i.e. personally conducted tours. The Botanic 

 Garden at Kew, near London, has now introduced personally 

 conducted tours. The English climate does not permit Kew to 

 have the variety of vegetation seen in the Melbourne garden. 

 But the very wealth of species in the Melbourne Botanic 

 Garden makes it necessary that some one who understands 

 it should go round and explain it to the public. During 

 the days which I have spent there with pencil and camera, 

 questions have been addressed to me from which it was easy to 

 see that not a fraction of the vegetative wealth was understood 

 by the casual visitor. 



One of the most valuable extra tropical trees for introducing 

 into Australian forests is the camphor tree {Chiamomf/iun 

 camphord). Its timber belongs to the most valuable class of 

 timbers, the "durable softwoods." It bears abundant berries, 

 of which birds are particularly fond and spread seed and 

 young trees rapidly in the adjoining forest. This may now be 

 seen going on at Gosford, in New South Wales. In a notice of 

 this tree occurring in the annual report of the conservator of 



