PREFACE. 



THIS volume of Australian Grasses is published under the authority 

 of the Honorable Sydney Smith, M.P., Minister for Mines and 

 Agriculture, New South Wales. 



During recent years I have been often asked by scientists and 

 pastoralists to publish an illustrated and descriptive work on 

 Australian grasses for general information, and in some of the 

 press reviews of my work on the " Indigenous Forage Plants of 

 Australia" (non-grasses), a hope was expressed that at no distant 

 date a similar work on Australian grasses would be forthcoming 

 from the same writer. Through the New South Wales Govern- 

 ment I have the opportunity of placing such a work before the 

 public, and I venture to think it will not only be a text-book on the 

 subject but a medium of making Australian grasses and their 

 economic properties better known throughout the world. My 

 descriptions of Australian salsolaceous plants (salt-bushes) have 

 been widely republished in this and in other countries for general 

 information, and there is now a great demand for salt-bush seeds, 

 not only for sowing in places on this continent, where the plants 

 have become scarce, but for sowing in South Africa, India, South 

 Europe, and some of the warmer States of North America. 



During the past twenty years I have travelled over thirty 

 thousand miles in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. 

 Some of this time was devoted to botanical excursions. For some 

 time I was inspecting and reporting on the capabilities of Crown 

 lands, and the best way of utilizing them, for the Government of 

 New South Wales, and last, but not least, I have written many 

 special reports on the pastoral areas of this country. A synopsis 

 of three of these reports, on important grazing districts, is embodied 

 in this book. I have also grown in an experimental way upwards 

 of one hundred species of Australian grasses, which, I believe, 



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