INTRODUCTORY 13 



freshly cut, contain about seventy-five per cent, of water, 

 four to six per cent, of fats, about two point three 

 per cent, of albuminoids, ten per cent, of digestible 

 carbohydrates, three to four per cent, of woody fibre, 

 with a very high percentage of ash, of which half is 

 common salt, ranging from five to ten. In comparison with 

 other forage plants, salt-bushes are richer than barley, maize, 

 oats, or sorghum fodder, weight for weight, and are nearly 

 equal to lucerne and the best meadow hay. Their nutritive 

 ratio is one to four, proving that they are a rich food, as they 

 contain one part of flesh-forming substances to four of heat- 

 giving materials, and thus furnish a well balanced ration for 

 fattening pasture animals. 



Edible Shrubs. Any account of the grasses and forage 

 plants of Australia would be incomplete without a mention 

 of the indigenous shrubs and trees whose foliage provide good 

 feed for stock. In its virgin state a fair percentage of the 

 interior that is now devoted to grazing consisted of vegetation 

 that was largely composed of drought enduring shrubs 

 scrubs as stockmen call them growing from three to fifteen 

 feet high or more, the leaves of which provided good feed for 

 herbivora when the more tender pasture herbage became 

 scarce during prolonged periods of dry weather. It has long 

 been proved by practical experience that that kind of 

 vegetation, when fairly plentiful, is of the greatest import- 

 ance, and it is therefore considered a most valuable asset 

 on any station. The constant feeding over of the dwarf 

 shrubs, the periodical lopping and cutting down of numbers 

 of the taller ones as feed for stock, and the ringbarking of 

 thousands of others by rabbits, have had a serious effect upon 

 the stock carrying capacity of immense areas of country in 

 dry seasons. In many districts this very useful vegetation 

 which was once plentiful has now become scarce, and it would 

 be wise to conserve it, where it is already growing, and replant 



