4 SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



The cultivation of the Black Wattle is extremely easy, being effected 

 by sowing either broadcast or in rows. Seeds can be obtained in 

 Melbourne at about 5s. per lb., which contains from 30,000 to 

 50,000 grains ; they are known to retain their vitality for several 

 years. Seeds should be soaked in warm water before sowing. Any 

 bare, barren, unutilised place might most remuneratively be sown 

 with this Wattle Acacia : the return would be in from five to ten 

 years. Full-grown trees, which supply also the best quality, yield 

 as much as 1 cwt. of bark. Mr. Dickinson states that he has seen 

 10 cwt. of bark obtained from a single tree of gigantic dimensions 

 at Southport. A quarter of a ton of bark was obtained from one 

 tree at Tambo without stripping all the limbs. The height of this 

 tree was 60 feet, and the stem 2 feet in diameter. The rate of 

 growth of the tree is about 1 inch in diameter of stem annually. 

 It is content with the poorest and driest or sandy soil, although 

 in more fertile ground it shows greater rapidity of growth. 

 This Acacia is perhaps the most important of all tan-yielding trees 

 of the warm temperate zones, for its strength in tannic acid, its 

 rapidity of growth, its contentedness with almost any soil, for the 

 ease with which it can be reared and for its early yield of tanner's 

 bark, and indeed also gum and stave-wood. The tree is to be 

 recommended for poor land affected with sorrel. It is hardier than 

 Eucalyptus Globulus, thus enduring the clime of South England ; 

 naturally it ascends hardly to sub-alpine elevations. 



The variety DEALBATA (Acacia dealbata, Link) is generally known 

 amongst Australian colonists as Silver- wattle. It prefers for its 

 habitation humid river-banks, and attains there a height of some- 

 times 150 feet, supplying a clear and tough timber used by coopers 

 and other artisans, but principally serving as select fuel of great 

 heating power. The bark of this variety is much thinner and 

 greatly inferior to the Black Wattle in quality, yielding only about 

 half the quantity of tanning principle. It is chiefly employed for 

 lighter leather. This tree is distinguished from the Black Wattle 

 by the silvery or rather ashy hue of its young foliage ; it flowers 

 early in spring, ripening its seeds in about 5 months, while the 

 Black Wattle blossoms late in spring or at the beginning of 

 summer, and its seeds do not mature before about 14 months. 



Acacia falcata, Willdenow. 



East- Australia. One of the best of trees for raising a woody 

 vegetation on drift-sand, as particularly proved at the Cape of 

 Good Hope. Important also for its bark in tanneries. 



Acacia Farnesiana, Willdenow. 



Dioscorides' small Acacia. Indigenous to South-Asia ; found west- 

 ward as far as Japan ; a native also of the warmer parts of Aus- 

 tralia, as far south as the Darling River ; found spontaneously in 



