BY A. MAULT. 131 



trees in the first will have arrived at maturity, and the 

 market will be kept regularly supplied with timber and 

 wood of all sorts and kinds. 



The conservancy will have to settle the questions of the 

 proper time of felling the various kinds of timber trees, the 

 propf^r manner of planting, the best method of seasoning 

 wood, including seasoning hard woods while the trees are 

 standing as practised in the teak forests in India, the time 

 and manner of selling the wood, the means to be taken for 

 protecting the forests from fire, and all such details of forest 

 conservation. The carrying out of all its duties by the con- 

 servancy will naturally train its staff to the fulfilment of 

 theirs, so that in time they can be entrusted with the charge 

 of the various reserves under due direction and supervision 

 from headquarters. The varying importance of the State and 

 local reserves will afford means of duly recognising zeal and 

 ability bv promotion. But the importance of getting a well- 

 trained staff emphasises the necessity of securing a tho- 

 roughly capable conservator, for there cannot be good train- 

 ing without a good trainer. It would be the falsest economy 

 to get an incapable or badly trained man who could only 

 introduce or perpetuate a bad and slovenly system. 



It will naturally take some time to get the conservancy 

 into full working order, so that it can show pnying results. 

 The length of this time will very much depend upon the 

 conservator, and the means given him to make a proper start. 

 This can be done by at once establishing an important 

 local reserve at headquarters. I would suggest that the area 

 of Mount Wellington proclaimed by the Guvernor-in-Council 

 of the 25th September, 1871, as a water reserve for the supply 

 of the City of Hobart, should be also proclaimed as a forest 

 reserve, together with all the adjacent unalienated Crown 

 lands. That such lands are not well adapted for ordinary 

 settlement is, I think, shown by the fact that they are not 

 already taken up. What the area of this reserve would be I 

 cannot say precisely, but probablv such parts of it as could 

 be conveniently held and administered, together with the 

 water reserve, would form a forest of five or six thousand 

 acres, quite a sufficient area for the proper instruction ami 

 development of a School of Forestry. Such a procla- 

 mation would not interfere with the water supj)ly of Hobart, 

 but on the contrary further protect and increase it by 

 the re-afforestation of much of the mountain that by fires 

 and neglect has been left bare, and led to the continuous 

 diminution of the rainfall there. Neither should it interfere 

 with the enjoyment of the mountain by the peojjle of Hobart 

 and their visitors, bu^t greatly increase it by adding the addi- 

 tional charms of judicious planting, and, by careful guarding, 



