EUCALYPTUS TREES, 77 



readily manifest. The accurate Customs returns for 

 the last year show an importation of foreign woods to 

 the value of je223,769 j there was scarcely any export. 

 This very month the imported building-wood sent to 

 Sandhurst alone has cost £58,000. Some countries 

 have not been altogether unmindful of the conserva- 

 tion of their forests. Germany, already much devas- 

 tated at the time of the Romans, received its first for- 

 est laws as far back as the reign of Charlemagne — 

 indeed, with the commencement of agriculture and 

 the settling of the nomadic hunter on fixed habita- 

 tions. The forests thus discontinued to be common 

 property, and in the fourteenth century commenced 

 already a forest economy. Full legislation, regular 

 management and actual cultivation of trees on an 

 extensive scale, date back one hundred and fifty 

 years. Venice formed its forest laws alfeady in the 

 fifteenth century. Although the desire for ample 

 hunting-territory gave a great impulse to the restric- 

 tions placed on the encroachment of the Middle Eu- 

 ropean forests, this at the same time saved them to 

 the country. 



Within the operations of wood culture may also be 

 included that of subduing drift-sand, and solidifying 

 the latter finally by plantations. For this purpose can 

 be chosen the Haleppo Pine, Cluster Pine, Scotch Fir, 

 or our own less arboreous so-called seashore Tea-trees 

 (Melaleuca parviflora and Leptospermum Isevigatum), 

 further the drooping She-oak (Casuarinaquadrivalvis), 

 the coast Honeysuckle (Banksia integrifolia), and also 

 our desert cypress, or so-called Murray Pine. As hot 

 only in close vicinity to our fine city one wilderness 

 of shifting sand exists, but as also in other places of 



