82 ESSAY ON FUEL PLANTATIONS. 



If in any portion of the block there is a paucity of suckers, 

 it is advisable to cut shallow trenches across the bare spots, 

 parallel to one another, and at intervals of from four to six 

 feet apart so as to sever the roots of the trees cut over. This 

 will immediately produce an abundant supply. The suckers 

 may be left alone now for two years, when, if the soil is fairly 

 good, they will have made such growth that they may be 

 thinned out to six feet apart, the most vigorous being left, 

 and the weakly ones cut away. 



At the end of the fourteenth year the sucker growth may 

 be cut over ; but the entire block, or a portion, should be 

 completely cleared, in order that light may be let in, and a 

 new crop of suckers spring up. 



The roots of the trees cut over in the first crop having 

 taken complete possession of the soil, the second crop ought 

 to produce twice as much as the first, and in fact will do so. 



The third crop of suckers will produce five-eighths more 

 than the original planting and afterwards this will be about 

 the average septennial produce. No other description of tree 

 that I know of will continue to produce heavy crops of fuel 

 for a great number of consecutive years as this one will, for 

 it is almost impossible to eradicate it when once thoroughly 

 established, and it should, therefore, never be grown on, soil 

 which is to be devoted afterwards to other crops. 



It is desirable in making a wattle plantation to plant a 

 few * E. Gldbulus trees between, as they considerably add 

 to the outturn of the first two crops, the Eucalyptus being 

 felled over from the stool at the end of the fourteenth year 

 when the stool-shoot will be of considerable size on an 

 average, fourteen inches in diameter and sixty feet high. 



As I have known of no inftnces of E. Globulus being 

 felled over more than twice from the stool, I cannot say how 

 often it would bear this treatment. Any assertion on this 

 head would be mere theory ; but it can, I think, be safely 



* Mr, Lateraon's Fuel Plantation on the Segur road ia an instance of 

 this. 



