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CULTURE. IN ITS RELATION 

 TO INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS. 



A LECTURE, 



DELIVERED BY BAEON FEED. VON MUELLEE. C.M.G., M.D., 

 Ph.D., F.E.S. 



(Government Botanist for Victoria, and Director of the Botanic Gardens of 

 Melbourne), 



On 



JUNE, 1871. 



" The toils of science smell the wealth of art" 



BULWER LYTTON, from Schiller. 



STRANGE as it may appear, an impression seems to be prevail- 

 ing in these communities, that our forests have to serve no 

 other purposes, but to provide wood for our immediate and 

 present wants, be it fuel or timber. For even after the warn- 

 ing of climatic changes, and after the commencing scarcity of 

 wood, no forest administration at least, none adequate, or 

 regularly organised has been initiated in any portion of 

 Australia; and thus the forests, even in districts already very 

 populous, remain almost unguarded, become extensively re- 

 duced, and in some localities are already annihilated; indeed, 

 the requirements of the current time alone are kept in view. 

 Under such circumstances it cannot be surprising, that neither 

 an universal forest supervision, nor a judicious restraint of 

 consumption, nor an ample utilisation of all the various col- 

 lateral resources of our woodlands, received that serious atten- 

 tion to which such measures became more and more entitled. 



During the earlier years of our colonisation, while the 

 population was but thinly scattered over the territory, or 



The Lecture mas illustrated by pictures of some Californian and 

 Himalayan Pines, by various diagrams, by a number of specimens 

 of the more geittirally used timber, accompanied by many hinds of 

 young trees of <t7ie corresponding species; likewise by a copious 

 display of other species recommendable for forest culture ; as also 

 by numerous technologic forest products and phytochcmic prepa- 

 rations, by nets and bashcts prepared from forest grasses and 

 rushes (Poa Australia and Xcrotcs longifolia). 



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