110 FOREST CULTUEE AND 



400,000 (35,000,000 francs) ? The time allotted to 

 my address is not sufficient to add much to these 

 instances. 



On various occasions I drew attention to the likeli- 

 hood of Peru-bark plants being eligible for culture in 

 the sheltered and warmer parts of our woods, inas- 

 much as in brush shades of the Botanic Gardens the 

 cinchonae endured a temperature two or three degrees 

 under the freezing point. Last year Cinchona-plants 

 given by me to Mr. G. W. Bobinson, of Hillesley, 

 near Berwick, for experiment, passed quite well 

 through the cool season without any cover. The 

 lowest temperature at Harmony Valley, Blackwood 

 Gully, in the Dandenong Ranges, observed during 

 1866 by Mr. Jabez Richardson, who, on my request, 

 kindly undertook the thermometer readings there 

 during that year, was still one degree above the freez- 

 ing point, while the temperature at the Melbourne 

 Observatory sunk to twenty -eight degrees Fahren- 

 heit. Let me note, however, that simultaneously frost 

 occurred in the open flats of Dandenong ; hence the 

 great importance of forest shelter in cases like this. 

 East Gipps Land, with its mild temperature, is likely 

 to prove the aptest part of the Victorian colony for 

 Peru-bark cultivation. Who does not remember the 

 deep grief into which a small insular colony sunk 

 within the last few years, when its population became 

 actually decimated by fever, and when, after one 

 hundred and fifty years of exfitence of that unhappy 

 colony, only just the first Cinchonas had been planted. 



In some of the uplands of New South Wales, where 

 it was desirable to clear awa^ bush vegetation — such, 

 for instance, in which Daviesias, or native hop, pre- 



