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stantly recur, trees valuable for timber cannot be produced, and 
finally the forest-regions are reduced to mere expanses of unsightly 
and useless scrubby growths. 
The unwise ‘system of permitting “free selection” within the 
boundaries of natural forests has produced such enormous 
destruction of timber that it becomes impossible to even roughly 
estimate the amount of loss from this cause alone, not only from 
the fires which the selectors have originated wilfully or carelessly, 
but from the injury done by stripping the very best timber-trees 
for the sake of the sheet of bark so obtained, and, in spite of the 
regulations intended to stop this senseless havoc, the practice is 
still common to ruin a tree worth possibly four or five pounds 
sterling for the sake of a sheet of bark worth possibly sixpence or 
a shilling. 
The outlook for succeeding generations is indeed dismal should 
the destruction of the forests continue as in the past; our water- 
sheds will become bare, bald hills and mountains, from which 
torrential floods will devastate the alluvial plains, and though the 
grazing area will be much extended, it will be at the expense of 
those forest-regions which so greatly affect and modify the 
extremes of climate for which Australia is remarkable. 
We can look to other countries to learn the extent of injury 
which the destruction of the indigenous flora may entail. Of 
this Spain affords a good example. Since the Roman period her 
extensive forests of oak, chesnut, and pine have almost entirely 
disappeared, and the extremes of climate being thus intensified, 
that country has lost much of her fertility, and consequently is 
less able to support a large population. 
To counteract the disastrous result of the wholesale destruc- 
tion of that portion of the Australian flora which now clothes 
the forest-regions with the very best and most valuable hard 
woods, an enlightened public sentiment needs to be cultivated, 
and though a beginning has been made, much remains to be done ; 
and it cannot be too much insisted on that the preservation of 
the Eucalyptus in its numerous species is of the very greatest 
and most vital importance to the best interests of Australia. It 
‘is of truly national consequence, for not one single instance of an 
exotic timber-producing tree can be quoted which so completely 
fulfils the conditions demanded by the soil and climate of Aus- 
tralia as the various Eucalypts now do, namely, great resistance 
to extremes of heat and cold, rapid reproduction, and a wonder- 
ful power of recovery from the effects of fire. 
That the public sentiment in favour of the preservation of the 
indigenous flora is awakening is evidenced by the readiness of 
large and small land-owners to plant round their homesteads 
various shelter-trees, which some of the Colonial Governments 
encourage by the gratuitous distribution of young seedlings. 
