48 



keep them twenty feet apart. This may serve as an indica- 

 tion how spare places on railways might be utilised. Our 

 regular and quick communication with California is giving 

 now easy opportunity for importing nuts of the various 

 American hickories and walnut-trees in quantity; while of 

 the ordinary Persian walnut-tree seeds can already be ob- 

 tained both here and in Tasmania. Resinous pine-trees may 

 possibly increase any danger of conflagrations on railway lines. 

 Nurseries for sowing seeds of hardy utilitarian trees might at 

 once be established on all the railway stations at compara- 

 tively little cost. 



The only effective public effort hitherto made to anticipate 

 the necessities of forest culture consists in the planting of 

 public reserves, parks, churchyards, school-grounds, cemeteries, 

 and the area of many of our public buildings. The trading 

 horticulturists have also largely aided in the importation and 

 raising of foreign trees. 



In this effort, as already remarked, I took a prominent 

 share, or perhaps in many instances it originated from im- 

 pulses or supports given by myself. 



Undoubtedly, it was a primary object to cover the dismal 

 barrenness of public grounds, to help in mitigating thereby 

 local dryness and heat, to afford shade and shelter, and to 

 render many a barren spot a pleasing retreat. 



Bnt this was not my only object. I had a second, and, to 

 my mind, higher one in view. 



I wished that, locally, many nuclei for forest culture should 

 be formed; that, within comparatively few years, seeds should 

 almost everywhere become available in masses from local tree- 

 plantations ; and that thus the efforts now made for parks and 

 pleasure-grounds 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 future 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 interests, 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 



