2 WATTLES AND WATTLE-BARKS. 



can be compressed into small compass. British and Continental tanners are 

 languishing for ample and continuous supply, and South Australia exports in 

 such driblets that very many of the large firms in great Britain have given 

 over using it, falling back on Valonia, and other barks mow fully and regularly 

 supplied. I may be allowed to remark here, reliable leather cannot be pro- 

 duced by intermittent and inadequate supply of bark, on which the tanner 

 relies when laying down his hides ; indeed, in large yards, such as with 

 50,000 hides always in the pits, it become a very serious difficulty, attended 

 with, anxiety and loss, not to be able, through want of sufficiency of bark of 

 a class, to work them through successfully. It therefore becomes a matter 

 of necessity that the exports of bark may be abundant and regular to such 

 an extent as tanners may confidently rely on. To such low export of wattle- 

 bark have your growers now arrived at, that one yard could manage to take 

 fully one-fourth say 1,000 tons of all the bark shipped from your ports 

 to England in 1882, and about one-third of the shipments for 1883. . . . 

 I am aware French and German tanners highly approve of the wattle for 

 tanning purposes." (Report to S. A. Legislative Council, 1881.) 



Throughout Australia the species of wattle richest in tannic acid are becom- 

 ing seriously diminished, and there is a consensus of opinion amongst persons 

 interested in the matter that the various Governments should encourage the 

 replanting of them. At the same time there are some species which tanners 

 despise (partly because the introduction of them w r ould disturb the routine 

 of their operations), which are even richer than some of the tan-barks in 

 common use in Europe and elsewhere, and there is no doubt that, sooner or 

 later, our local tanners will have to fall back upon these second-grade wattle 

 barks, unless the cultivation of good wattles is actively entered upon. 



In regard to Tasmania, which has hitherto supplied so large a quantity of 

 good wattle bark, Mr. E. Abbott, Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens, 

 Hobart, says : " We have so many wattle trees growing naturally, that we 

 have had no need to cultivate them in Tasmania, but the destruction is so 

 great we shall have to do it before Ion";." (Acacia decurrens.) 



Mr. E. Donovan, representative of the Tanners' and Curriers' Union of 

 Melbourne, in giving evidence before the Royal Commission on Vegetable 

 Products, states that for the bark which in 1872 cost 3 15s. per ton, 8 or 

 9 was paid in 1887, and he is very emphatic on the necessity of wattle 

 culture on a large scale. Mr. Dunn, a tanner, gave evidence to the effect 

 that in 1872 wattle bark was selling from 2 10s. to 3 a ton. In 1879 the 

 price had gone up as high as 9 10s., and since then it has varied from 8 

 10?. to 11 ; in 1887, the best bark was 10. (Acacia decurrens.} 



The best Sydney black or green wattle bark (Acacia decurrcns] fetched 

 10 last season, and this appears to be the top price on the average. 



