249 



The results wore twofold. Young seedlings had now a chance of life, and a severe check was 

 removed from insect pests. The consequence of these and other co-operating causes may be traced 

 throughout the district, and a few instances will illustrate my meaning. 



The valley of the Snowy River, when the early settlers came down from the Maneroo (Monaro) to 

 occupy it, as, for instance, from Willis downwards to Mountain Creek, was very open and free from forests. 

 At Turnback and the Black Mountain, the mountains on the western side of the river were, in many parts 

 clothed with grass, and with but a few large scattered trees of E. homijiMoia. 



Forests increased. — The immediate valley was a series of grassy alluvial flats, through which 

 the river meandered. After some years of occupation, whole tracts of country became covered with 

 forests of young saj^lings of E. hemiphloia, 'paucifiora (coriacca), viminalis, amygdalina {radiata), and 

 slellidata, and at the present time these have so much increased, and grown so much, that it is difficult 

 to ride over parts which one can see by the few scattered old giants were at one time open grassy country. 



Within the last twenty-five years many parts of the Tambo Valley, from Ensay up to Tougio, have 

 likewis3 become overgrown by a young fores*^, principally of E. hemi'phloia and macrorrlnjncha , which 

 extend up the mountains on either side of the valley. This dates especially from the time when the 

 country was fenced into large sheejj paddocks, when it became very important that bush fires should be 

 "jircvented as a source of danger to the fences, and even when fire occurred the shortness of the pasturage 

 checked the spread. 



Similar observations may be made in the Omeo district, namely, that young forests of various 

 kinds of Eucalypts are growing where a quarter of a century ago the hills were open and park-like. In 

 the mountains, from Mount Wellington, to Castle Hill, in which the sources of the Avon River take rise, 

 the increase of the Eucalyptus forests has been very marked. Since the settlement of the country, ranges, 

 which were then only covered by an open forest, are now grown up with saplings of E. ohliqua, E. Suberiana 

 and others, as well as dense growths of Acacia discolor, A. vernicifitm, and other arborescent shrubs. These 

 mountains were, as a whole, according to accounts given me by surviving aborigines, much more open 

 than they are now. 



In the upper valley of the Moroka River, which takes its rise at Mount Wellington, I have noticed 

 that the forests are encroaching very greatly upon such open plains as occur in the valley. I observed 

 one range, upon which stood scattered gigantic trees of E. Sieberiana, now all dead, while a forest of young 

 trees of the same species, all of the same approximate age, which may probably be twelve years, growing so 

 densely that it would not be easy to force a passage through on horseback. Again, at the Caledonia River, 

 as at the Moroka, the ranges are in many parts quite overgrown with forests not more than twenty years 

 old. The valleys of the Wellington and Macalister Rivers also af!ord most instructive examples of the 

 manner in which the Eucalyptus forests have increased in the mountains of Gippsland since the country 

 was settled. The forest in these valleys, below 2,000 feet above sea level, is principally composed of 

 Eucahjjitus polyanthemos, E. macrorrhyncha, with occasional examples of E. melliodora and E. Stuartiana ; 

 while E. viminalis occupies the river banks and moist flats. I noticed here that E. melliodora and 

 E. macrorrhyncha formed dense forests of young trees, apparently not more than 25 years old. In 

 some places, moreover, one could see that the original forest had been composed, on the lower 

 undulating hills and higher flats, of a few very large E. melliodora, with scattered trees of E. jwlyanthemos 

 and E. macrorrhyncha. At the present time the two latter have taken possession, almost to the exclusion of 

 E. nwUiodora. In other places E. polyanthemos or E. macrorrhyncha predominate; but, on the whole, 

 I think the latter will ultimately triumph over its rivals, unless the hand of man again intervenes. 



Such observations may also be made in Western and Southern Gippsland, but, of course, with 

 reference to difierent species of Eucalypts. 



In the great forest of South Gippsland many places can be seen where there are substantially only 

 two existing generations of trees; one of a few very large old trees, the others of very numerous trees 

 which are probably not older than thirty to forty years, and in most cases certainly not half that period. 

 The older trees of this second growth do not, I suspect, date further back than the memorable " Black 

 Thursday" (6th February, 1851. — J.H.M.), when tremendous fires raged over this tract of country. It 

 may also be inferred, from the constant discoveries, during the process of clearing, of blackfellows' stone 

 tomahawks, that much of this country now covered by a dense scrub of gum saplings, Pomadcrns apetala 

 Aster argyrophylla, and other arborescent shrubs, was at that time mainly an open forest. 



