232 DISCUSSION. 



I objected, and do still object. About ten days ago, I asked a 

 fencer of great experience, who was then putti]ig up a fence 

 more than a hundred miles from Sydney, whether he had ever 

 kno^ii " ironbark trees to be ring-barked," and liis reply was, 

 '•'hundreds of acres of that and other valuable timber." And I 

 know from other sources to which I have applied for information, 

 in the desire to find out if I had in any way misstated the fact, 

 that such timber is still being ring-barked. My first objection 

 to ring-barking is, that it is a practice of a slovenly and a greedy 

 kind, and is adopted to save the expense of clearing and stumping 

 the ground. It is what, to use the language once heard in the 

 Eritish Parliament, is merely a " breeches pocket " policy, though 

 some think it is of national advantage to keep a few pounds in, 

 or to add a few pounds to the purse of an individual, without 

 reference to future conditions or the claims of posterity, and this 

 is the only argument yet advanced to us to justify the practice. 

 I give these gentlemen full credit for their patriotic determination 

 to do what they can for the good of their adopted country, and I 

 hope we are all, even the un-acred members of this Society, aiming 

 in our respective occupations at the same end. Nor have I 

 denied that if a dead tree does allow more grass to grow than a 

 living one, some advantage for a time may be gained ; but when 

 the dead tree decays and scatters its branches over more ground 

 than it covered before, would that be an advantage or a disad- 

 vantage ? And must not that eventually be the case, and so 

 injury be done to the future occupant, or free selector who is 

 now, by law, entitled to all the advantages of occupancy ? It is 

 very well to talk of "worthless scrub on dry ranges "; but what 

 is to be said respecting full, well-grown, useful timber on plains 

 or gently undulating gTOund ? I am challenged to " figures," wliich 

 are to convert "theory into science." IS'ow, as I have before 

 said, the figures are only to be found in the possession of 

 those who profit by them, and so the science of the question 

 cannot be submitted as a sum in addition or subtraction ; it 

 must therefore rest on other experiences, and as yet we have 

 no data to appeal to beyond the experience of persons in all 

 other parts of the world, and to those I have already appealed. 

 There are no published data in this Colony as to the advantages 

 even alleged to have been gained by ring-barking of worthless 

 " scrub on dry ranges." Figures founded on unknown data or on 

 imperfect premises may prove anything or nothing, and have 

 not even the value of the theory which is said to be founded 

 on "five columns" of what has been called "inconclusive 

 quotations." I repeat, let "all the figures be iuaported, as 

 well as the momentary profits" of ring-barking. This is for 

 the assertor of those profits to do. And till this has been 

 done the figures have only a one-sided value. But the other 



