22 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SELECT 



Dr.j.c. Brown, also the forests in other parts of Europe, and report thereafter 



Aug. 21, 1866. what is seen, or suggested by what is seen there, applicable to 



the management of forests in this country, whether relating to 



matters connected with private enterprise or Government 



control. 



96. You are aware there is an importation of foreign wood 

 into this Colony, for sleepers for railways, and purposes of 

 that nature. Do you not think that this Colony is able to 

 supply timber well adapted for such purposes? 1 am aware 

 of the fact ; and there will always be an importation of 

 timber into the ports of the Colony, so long as it can be 

 imported at a lower price than it can be cut and brought to 

 these ports from our forests. But there are districts of the 

 Colony so far from any port that timber could be raised there 

 at a much lower rate than that at which foreign timber can 

 be conveyed from the port. It is also ascertained that 

 much of our forest timber is suitable for railway pur- 

 poses; but I think it not improbable that, if the economic 

 uses to which that timber could be put were ascertained, it 

 would be found that its price in the market of the world is 

 such that it would be extravagance to employ it as railway 

 sleepers, and more economical to sell it for other purposes, 

 even though iron or timber sleepers should be imported from 

 Europe. 



97. Would you recommend our colonial wood as sleepers. 

 Is it equal to those imported ? The best authority on that 

 subject is Mr. Bourne, who, I believe, has made experiments 

 on the subject, the results of which I have not seen. But I 

 have with me records of experiments made by others, which 

 show that several of our indigenous trees yield a timber well 

 adapted for such purposes. The Cape cedar is fast disap- 

 pearing from the Cedar Bergen ; but it supplies a wood 

 which seems almost indestructible by damp. I was told in 

 the district of Clanwillian of posts which after thirty years' 

 exposure in the ground were not decayed to a greater depth 

 than the thickness of a sheet of paper; and a post which must 

 have been in the ground a hundred years was still immovable. 



98. You have observed that there are few new plantations 

 going on in this country, and that in a few years there will be 

 few plantations left, owing to the destruction going on. Do 

 you consider that the Government should give encouragement 

 or support to any one who can show the greatest number of 

 trees planted ? Yes. 



