EUCALYPTUS TREES. 75 
dominated —angoras proved very effectual for the 
purpose. Doubtless there are many forest tracts where 
this measure could be adopted with advantage to gain 
grass pasture, without any injury being done to large 
native trees; but the smaller trees are likely to suffer, 
while the underwood might in many instances be 
better utilized for potash or oil. At all events, goats 
are, among pastoral animals, the most destructive to 
vegetation, and much of the forests on the Alps of 
Switzerland and Tyrol were destroyed by the indis- 
criminate access given to goats. The Angora, with 
its precious fleece, can therefore be located only in 
some forest regions; it thrives, moreover, in the 
' desert. 
I might allude, on this occasion, also to the great 
productiveness of bees in our forests, the flowers of so 
many of our native plants, and among them those of 
the Eucalypts, being mellaginous—blossoms of some 
kind or the other being available all the year round. 
Cuba, with an area less than half that of Victoria, 
exported, in the year 1849, so large a quantity of 
honey as two millions and eight hundred thousand 
pounds, and about one million pounds of wax. I be- 
lieve the export has since increased. A forest inhab- 
itant might devote a plot of ground near his dwelling 
to the earth-nut or pea-nut, an originally Brazilian 
plant, of which latterly about nine hundred thousand 
bushels were produced annually in the United States 
for the sake of its excellent table-oil. In Harper's 
Magazine of 1870 it is stated that of the earth-nut, in 
1869, not less than two hundred and thirty-five thou- > 
sand bushels were brought to New York. It is esti- 
mated that Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Carolina 
