96 FOREST CULTURE AND 
has been secured* for preserving some relics of its 
most ancient trees to convey to posterity an idea of 
the original features of our primeval forests. Though 
it may appear foreign to my subject, I cannot with- 
hold also on this occasion an imploring word, more 
particularly when I notice land - proprietors in East 
Australia to hold not even sacred a single native 
Banyan-tree, which required centuries for building 
its expansive dome and its hundreds of columnar pil- 
lars ; nor to allow a single Cyrtosia Orchid to continue 
with its stem trailing to the length of thirty feet, and 
to remain with its thousands of large, fragrant blos- 
soms, the pride of the forest. That very Cyrtosia 
vives a clue to the affinity and structure of other plants 
not nearer to us than Java; and its destruction, with 
probably that of many others which the naturalist 
forever is now prevented to dissect, or the artist to 
delineate, or the museum custodian to preserve, will 
be a loss to systematic natural history, also, forever. 
Again, in a spirit of Vandalism, a Fan-Palm, after a 
hundred years’ growth, is no longer allowed to raise 
its slender stem and lofty crown in our own forests of 
Gipps Land, simply because curiosity is prompted to 
obtain a dishful of Palm-Cabbage at the sacrifice of a 
century’s growth. 
Let it be remembered that the uncivilized inhabit- 
ants of many a tropical country know how to respect 
the original and not always restorable gifts of a boun- 
tiful Providence. They will invaribly climb the Palm- 
* On the River Hastings some magnificent dales have been lately protected 
by the Government of New South Wales for the sake of the incomparably 
beautiful and grand native vegetation, an example deserving extensive imi- 
tation. The forests of the Bunya Araucaria, occupying only a limited nati: 
Yal area, are also secured against intrusion by the Government, 
