30 PRESENT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OE 



against bird's-eye maple, black walnut, and many others 

 which can be procure4 there much cheaper than they 

 could possibly be delivered from Tasmania, leaving a 

 fair profit to your exporters. A considerable quantity 

 of Blackwood has, however, lately been sent to Woolwich, 

 where it is being used in the construction of gun- 

 carriages, and has, I believe, given satisfaction. 

 Another thing of great importance, in a business point of 

 view, is that these foreign woods can be delivered in 

 nearly any quantity required, and that there always 

 exist large stocks of them, seasoned and ready to be 

 selected by intending purchasers. You, on the contrary, 

 as far as I have seen or heard, have, comparatively, to 

 Blue-gum and Stringy-bark, a very small quantity to 

 dispose of ; indeed, scarcely more than is necessary for 

 your own and the neighbouring States' consumption. 



I shall not easily forget my impressions on entering 

 your Bush for the first time. The whole scene struck me 

 as so weird, so antediluvian, if I may so express myself, 

 so very different from anything I had seen before ; such 

 a contrast to either our English woodlands or the con- 

 tinental forests. Those blanched giant trees, some of 

 them 250 feet in height, spreading out their bare 

 branches to the sky ; the young undergrowth of gums 

 in full foliage, and splendid ferns of every species and 

 size, formed a picture which never can fade from my 

 recollection. But, mingled with my feelings of instinc- 

 tive admiration with whiich I regarded your splendid 

 trees, a great emotion of regret, pity, and at last indig- 

 nation overcame me when I saw the waste — wilful and 

 ignorant destruction of some of the finest trees which 

 ever existed in any country. When I thought and 

 knew, that every one of those magnificent, but ruined, 

 monarchs of the forest would have been worth, at least, 

 some £50 in England, 1 felt really heartsick as I looked 

 at such standing monuments of man's ignorance and folly 

 in destroying, or allowing to be destroyed, such a valuable 

 factor in the prosperity of your country and of its 

 dimate. 



On investigation I found that bushfires, on the one 

 iand, and wanton and useless ringbarking and burning 



