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the possibility of resumption by the political heads of the Crown 
Lands Department of each colony, whose fiscal necessities have 
frequently caused the public estate to be alienated for the benefit 
of private individuals. Each reserve would require one forester 
at least, who should be permanently resident thereon. The 
boundaries of each forest should be as far as possible natural 
ones. It is true most of the colonies have now a forest depart- 
ment, but some of the reservations are unsuitable, and those 
suitable are often too limited in extent ; whilst the resumption of 
the reservation is too easily obtained. 
In respect to the preservation of our exceptionally rich and 
abundant fodder-plants on areas where the rabbit-plague is kept 
within reasonable limits, graziers will find it entirely to their 
own interests to encourage the most valuable growth by the 
adoption of a system of alternate grazing of sheep and cattle on 
the different divisions of their holdings. Seasons of heavy and 
continuous rains invariably cause the long-buried seeds to spring 
in wonderful abundance, and these only require sufficient time 
to reach a development which will withstand a moderate amount 
of grazing. 
It cannot be too often repeated that the fat-producing quality 
of our native vegetation, which covered originally all the in- 
terior at present stocked, is quite unequalled in the world for its 
abundance and hardiness to withstand an ordinary drought and 
it is notorious that stock fed on it will travel hundreds of miles 
to market without serious deterioration. | Unless some such plan 
is widely acted on it is safe to forecast the extinction of that 
portion of our vegetation whose great value and importance is due 
to its economic value as a food for stock, and capable of increas- 
ing and multiplying under such conditions of heat or cold, 
drought or flood, as no other vegetation can possibly do. 
The longer this extinction progresses the greater and greater 
will be the losses entailed by periods of drought, and it has been 
already demonstrated on an extensive scale that this destruction 
renders valueless very large tracts of country; and that in other 
parts, where the rainfall is greater and more regular, the edible 
shrubs and perennial grasses are liable to be supplanted by 
annuals and worthless perennial grasses. Hence the preservation 
of our indigenous flora, whilst looked upon as a fad by the 
ignorant and unthinking, is really in its cumulative effects one of 
great national importance—an importance difficult to exaggerate 
as affecting our food-supplies and the greatest of our sources of 
exported wealth. 
