EUCALYPTUS TREES. Ill 



dominated — angoras proved very effectual for the 

 purpose. Doubtless there are many forest tracts where 

 this measure could be adopted with advantage to gain 

 grass pasture, without any injury being done to large 

 native trees ; but the smaller trees are likely to suffer, 

 while the underwood might in many instances be 

 better utilized for potash or oil. At all events, goats 

 are, among pastoral animals, the most destructive to 

 vegetation, and much of the forests on the Alps of 

 Switzerland and Tyrol were destroyed by the indis- 

 criminate access given to goats. The Angora, with 

 its precious fleece, can therefore be located only in 

 some forest regions ; it thrives, moreover, in the 

 desert. 



I might allude, on this occasion, also to the great 

 productiveness of bees in our forests, the flowers of so 

 many of our native plants, and among them those of 

 the Eucalypts, being mellaginous — blossoms of some 

 kind or the other being available all the year round. 

 Cuba, with an area less than half that of Victoria, 

 exported, in the year 1849, so large a quantity of 

 honey "as two millions and eight hundred thousand 

 pounds, and about one million pounds of wax. I be- 

 lieve the export has since increased. A forest inhab- 

 itant might devote a plot of ground near his dwelling 

 to the earth-nut or pea-nut, an originally Brazilian 

 plant, of which latterly about nine hundred thousand 

 bushels were produced annually in the United States 

 for the sake of its excellent table-oil. In Harper's 

 Magazine of 1870 it is stated that of the earth-nut, in 

 1869, not less than two hundred and thirty-flve thou- 

 sand bushels were brought to New York. It is esti- 

 mate4 that Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Carolina 



