8 SCIENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



pvcminthn in the south-west of Cape Colony. A, saligna (sometimes 

 called Port Jackson Wattle) grows like a weed on the Cape Flats and 

 elsewhere in the south-west of Cape Colony, and it furnishes a bark 

 which has been largely used by the Cape Town tanners, and which 

 bark contains up to 23 per cent, of tannin. The Wattle, however, 

 which yields the largest percentage of bark, surpassing even the 

 Black Wattle, is A, pycnantha, or the Golden Wattle of South 

 Australia. This is now being grown on the Cape Flats and else- 

 where in the Government plantations. It nourishes throughout 

 the whole region of winter rains from Cape Town to Knysna, and 

 should be more largely planted than it is by farmers. Wattles 

 yielding a return in from five to seven years can be produced by 

 private enterprise and have thus not been so largely planted in the 

 Government State Forests. 



These are the most important of the introduced trees now being 

 planted for timber in South Africa. Many more are being grown ; 

 the range of choice in the extra-tropics is wide. It would be im- 

 possible here to even mention by name all that are being and have 

 been tested by the Forest Department. Of trees not falling within 

 the four chief classes Eucalypts, Pines, Cedars and Wattles there 

 are such valuable timbers as Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon), Cali- 

 fornian Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Camphor (Cinnamomum 

 camphora), several species of Podocarpus and Araucaria, and others 

 which cannot even be mentioned here. 



FORESTRY IN CAPE COLONY. 



The forests of extra-tropical South Africa occupy but a small 

 portion of its area, and are still less fitted to supply the wants 

 of the country in timber. This had long been recognised. As 

 early as 1819 there was a Superintendent of Lands and Woods 

 at Cape Town. In 1876 Forests and Plantations were constituted 

 a separate department of the Ministerial Division, its principal 

 officers corresponding directly with the Ministerial office. The 

 chief forest officer was then at Knysna. At last in 1881 a separate 

 Forest Department was organised, and the Cape Government 

 obtained the services of an eminent French forester, the Count de 

 Vasselot, as head of the Cape Forest Department. This gentleman 

 had obtained his professional training in the French National 

 Forest School at Nancy (than which there is no better), and had 

 since obtained distinction by particularly good work in connection 

 with the great re-foresting operations in Gascony. The work 

 there was with Cluster-pine (Pinus pinaster], which is at the same 

 time the pine that has been most largely employed in the pine 

 plantations of South Africa. Count de Vasselot made a forest 

 tour through the country, and his recommendations after this tour 

 will be found in the valuable report which was translated and 

 presented to Parliament in 1882. This report should be referred 

 to by those who may wish for further information on the position 

 of Cape Forestry at that time. In 1883 the writer, who had 

 also been trained at Nancy, arrived from India, and was 



