90 FOREST CULTURE AND F 
only occurring in East Gipps Land, within our terri- 
tory, rank among the most lofty of the globe, though 
also among the most hardy. All this, in our latitude, 
seem astounding — but more, it demonstrates, also, 
great riches; and I allude to it here only because I 
wished to show how a vegetation so prodigious points 
to the facilities of a natural, magnificent, industrial 
culture. The complex of vegetation is always an in- 
dicator of the soil and climate ; as such alone, plants 
deserve close study. In this instance it reveals un- 
told treasures, and yet, without phytographic knowl- 
edge they could never be understood, nor any intelli- 
gent appreciation of them be conveyed beyond the lo- 
eality. 
But can this grand picture of nature not be further 
embellished? Might not the true Tulip-tree, and the 
large Magnolias of the Mississippi and Himalaya, 
tower far over the Fern-trees of these valleys, and 
widely overshade our arborescent Labiatae ?* Might 
not the Andine Wax Palm, the Wettinias, the Gin- 
gerbread Palm, the Jubea, the Nicau, the northern 
Sabals, the Date, the Chinese Fan Palms, and Rhapis 
flabelliformis, be associated with our Palm in a glori- 
ous picture? Or, turning to still more utilitarian ob- 
jects, would not the Cork- tree, the Red Cedar, the 
Camphor-tree, the Walnuts and Hickories of North 
America, grow in these rich, humid dales, with very 
much greater celerity than even with all our tending 
in less genial spots? Could not, of four hundred co- 
niferous trees, and three hundred sorts of Oaks, nearly 
every one be naturalized in these ranges, and thus 
* Rhododendron arboreum attains a height of thirty feet, while Bh. Fal- 
coneri rises to fifty feet, with leaves half a yard long, 
