15 



-fctose whose interests are bound up with stock can either name 

 correctly or accurately describe the plants on which they in- 

 directly subsist, although everywhere in Australia amongst 

 practical men certain prevalent forms of vef^etation give a 

 name to well-understood sorts of country ; for besides the 

 general distinction of grass country or saltbush country we 

 have in each of the colonies familiar expressions roughly de- 

 noting the healthiness or otherwise of certain areas, such as 

 the "jam" country of West Australia, named from an acacia 

 whose wood is scented like raspberry jam ; or again, in INTew 

 South Wales, another acacia, the "myall," with violet-scented 

 wood, is a certain sign of the healthiness of certain districts ; 

 or in our own colony, "mulga" country defines certain pecu- 

 liarities of soil and climate. 



Yery heavy losses have arisen from sheep farmers being mis- 

 led as to the food qualities of the scrubby vegetation, l^or in- 

 stance, many of the scrubby plants of the Murray Scrub are 

 excellent fodder ; others, characteristic of the South-East and 

 Kangaroo Island, are so deficient in nutriment that sheep can 

 barely exist, as they are mainly Hakeas, G-revilleas, Melaleucas, 

 Banksias, &c., whereas the shrubs to which your attention is 

 -to be directed greatly assist in producing that excess ol stearine 

 in tallow which is the main cause of stock retaining their fat 

 during long journeys, and this excess of stearine is conspicuous 

 in cattle fattened amidst the saltbush and mulga of the jN"orth, 

 But, on the contrary, the deficiency of stearine in stock fat- 

 tened in the South-East is the reason why they "waste," or in 

 other words, lose condition so much before reaching the Ade- 

 laide market. 



It is the more desirable to consider this subject, because I 

 fear that in some localities many of the most valuable of our 

 shrubs are doomed to extinction from the fondness of stock for 

 them and from that system of overstocking which too com- 

 monly prevails, and because in some localities — as, for instance, 

 from the east bank of the Murray Eiver to the Victoria border 

 — the rabbits are barking and completely destroying all those 

 shrubs which gave that region its chief value as a grazing 

 country ; and as the seasons when sufficient rains fall to give a 

 good growth of grass are very irregular and uncertain, a vast 

 area is likely to become more or less a real desert. 



It is also noteworthy that stock do ]S"0T in different localities 

 invariably eat the same plants ; of this, the jSTative or Cypress 

 Pine (Callltris verrucosa) is a striking instance. On the Murray 

 and in the North it is greedily eaten wherever stock can reach 

 it, but on the western slopes of the dividing range in JSTew 

 South Wales and to the south-east of Cobar, the same tree be- 

 ■comes a real pest to stockholders, for, seeding very abundantly, 



