2 3 



closed over the place again. If standing trees are burned in this 

 way, care will have to be taken to keep stock away ; and also in 

 going about it, as the trees may fall unexpectedly, but it is found 

 cheaper and better to chop clown the trees and burn out the stump 

 than to grub the trees, besides the sour earth is not turned up as in 

 grubbing. The work is light. It takes very little time or trouble 

 to go round the fires to keep them burning, and one man can attend 

 to a great number as well as keep on lighting others. Before 

 leaving Victoria last March I was at the farm of Messrs. Murdie 

 Bros., well-known farmers near Warragul, who have some very 

 heavy timber on their land. They told me this was the best way 

 they had tried. An old man had taken a contract from them last 

 year to clear 50 acres of stumps. He had been working by himself 

 all the winter and had nearly finished, and it had cost them from 

 3 to ^4 per acre less than the old way. Other farmers about 

 there told me it \vas only half the cost of grubbing to stove the 

 stumps. I had some stumps cleared on my ow r n selection about 

 three years ago for 2 per acre that would have cost over ^4 per 

 acre to grub. " 



BURNING OFF. 



With some varieties ot trees it is much easier to get them 

 down than to get rid of them after they are down. This is particu- 

 larly the case when the timber has not been previously killed by 

 ring-barking. The usual method of getting rid of the timber is by 

 burning it, first cutting the smaller limbs up into convenient lengths 

 for handling with an axe or cross-cut saw. The larger limbs and 

 butts of the smaller trees should also be cut up and pulled up to the 

 largest trunks by horse power. The mistake is sometimes made by 

 those who have not done this work before, of stacking up all the 

 small timber on the trunks and setting fire to the whole lot at once. 

 This should not be done except in the case of trees that are dead, 

 and consequently dry, and that are known to burn freely. Burning 

 off is, at best, under the most favorable circumstances, a tedious 

 process, and though it may seem very slow work, it is quicker in 

 the long run to economise the smaller stuff and add a little to the 

 fires as needed. It occasionally happens, in spite of the greatest 

 economy, there are still butts unburnt, and which are too large to be 

 moved whole and which cannot be split by the wedge and maul. 

 When this occurs it has to be decided whether it is cheaper to haul 

 more timber to the spot or break up the butts by means of ex- 

 plosives. A plug or two of dynamite judiciously applied will do 

 more in the leu minutes the operation requires, than a man and a 

 team will do in a day. 



Another way, which has been recommended to me, but which 

 I have not tried, of getting rid of the huge butts of red gums and 

 other trees that are full of sap and refuse to burn except under 

 the most intense heat, is to throw earth up to them and treat them 



