168 FOREST CULTURE. 
Judicious forest culture, appropriate to each zone, 
will vastly ameliorate the clime, and provide for the 
dense location of our race ; for transplanting of almost 
every commodity, both of the vegetable and animal 
empire, we possess, from the Alps to the Steppes, from 
the cool mountain forests to the tropic jungles, condi- 
tions and ample space. 
River-waters, now flowing unutilized to the ocean, 
when cast over the back plains, and artesian borings 
also, will effect marvellous changes. Steam power 
and the increased ingenuity of machinery applied to 
cultivation will render the virgin soil extensively 
productive with far less toil than in older countries, 
while the teachings of science will guard us against 
the rapacious systems of culture and the waste of fer- 
tilizers which well-nigh involved ruin to many a land. 
Of ferocious land animals Australia is free. We have 
neither to encounter extensive hordes of savages to 
dispute the possession of the soil, nor the still more 
dangerous opposition of half-civilized barbarians, such 
as for ages yet:may obstruct the progress of civiliza- 
tion in the great interior of Africa. 
Our continent, it may be foretold prophetically, will 
ere long be regarded of so high a territorial value that 
no tract, however much disregarded now, will remain 
unoccupied. Our continent, surrounded moreover by 
the natural boundaries of three oceans, free and un- 
connected, must advance, by extraneous influences 
undisturbed, by ancient usages unretarded, to that 
greatness to which British sovereignty will ever give 
a firm stability. 
a. / & 
