80 FOREST CULTURE AND 
should be enlarged for creating more or less extensive 
forests. 
These ideas may, perhaps, excite some surprise, 
yet I feel confident that they will and must be acted 
on before, in frightful truthfulness, the terrors of a 
woodless country in our zone, and settled with a fu- 
ture dense population, will be encountered. 
Should, however, my warnings fail to impress the 
public mind, then at least I have placed my views on 
record, and should not be held responsible for inter- 
ests, however vital, which the trust of my position 
must largely bring under my reflection and care. 
My effort in supplying merely material for raising 
local plantations all over the colony is, however, but 
the first step ina great national work of progress ; 
and I think we may reflect, not without some pride, 
that this public step was made in Australia here first 
of all. 
Halfa million of plants distributed by me to public 
institutions is, after all, but a trifle in a country that 
requires hundreds of millions of foreign trees, if it 
really is to advance to greatness and the highest pros- 
perity ; a greatness that will be retarded in the same 
degree as attention to this, one of its most urgent in- 
terests, is deferred. 
The gifts of plants from the establishment under 
my control have provided the country with many a 
species that otherwise would not have existed here 
yet. Many of the magnificent or quick-growing Him- 
alayan and California Pines, not to speak of others, 
became through my hand first dispersed by thousands 
and thousands; and although I may have incurred 
the displeasure of a few of the less thoughtful of my 
