

4*9 



peculiar to the eastern portion of the continent have, and which 

 cause so much trouble to the salivary glands of sheep and other small 

 herbivora if they eat too greedily of these plants when the fruits are 

 near maturity. 



Most Australian pastoralists know from long experience that a 

 large number of the salt-bush family are exceedingly tenacious of 

 life, in fact, the drier the season the more luxuriant many of them 

 grow, provided that they are not persistently eaten down. Moreover, 

 there are abundant proofs that when sheep are pastured on country 

 where plenty of salinous plants are growing amongst the natural 

 grasses, distoma and other allied diseases are almost unknown. It has 

 been said that if horses, which are subject to swamp cancer when on 

 the low coast lands, are turned into dry pasture where salinous plants 

 are growing plentifully, they soon lose this disease. Where the salt- 

 bush grows plentifully on pastoral areas in the eastern division of 

 the continent stock thrive during the driest of seasons. But in those 

 parts of the country where the salt-bush has disappeared through 

 over-stocking and other causes, sheep and cattle often die in large 

 numbers of starvation when the grasses and the more tender herbage 

 have died out through drought. To provide against such a 

 contingency in the future it would well repay pastoralists to 

 redisseminate salt-bush on those areas from which it has disappeared, 

 and systematically conserve it where it is already growing. Fenced 

 in salt-bush reserves should also be established on every pastoral 

 holding in the country where the conditions for the growth of the 

 plant are favourable. Most kinds of salt-bush will withstand a few 

 degrees of frost with impunity. Reserves could be made at very 

 little expense, and the best way to lay them out so as to be of the 

 greatest possible benefit to stock during dry times, when other feed 

 is scarce, is as follows : Each one should be made from half a mile 

 to a mile in length, about two chains in width, and from three to 

 six miles apart, according to the size of the pastoral holding. This 

 plan is recommended for obvious reasons. It is easy to imagine if 

 these reserves \vere laid out near each other, that the hungry 

 animals would congregate in large numbers at some particular point, 

 and that scores of the weaker ones w r ould be trampled to death. 

 It is really astonishing the amount of excellent forage that can be 

 cut, if done in a systematic way, from a few acres of established 

 salt-bush, even in the driest of seasons. The young succulent shoots 

 and leaves of many species of Atriplex and Rhagodia make fairly 

 good table vegetables if cooked and served in the ordinary way. On 

 those pastoral holdings where it is difficult and often impossible to 

 grow the common garden vegetables during the hot summer months 

 a few of the best kinds of salt-bush could easily be cultivated and 

 used as a substitute. 



Propagation. All the salt-bushes can be raised from seed, and 

 many of them can be multiplied by cuttings. The latter should be 

 made of the half-ripened wood, cut into lengths of about one 



