130 FOREST CUIia?UEE AND 



self without an adequate and inexpensive material for 

 his work? Annually, the timber of one hundred and 

 fifty thousand acres is cut away in the United States 

 to supply the want for railway-sleepers alone. The 

 annual expenditure there in wood, for railway build- 

 ings and.cars, is £7,600,000. In a single year the lo- 

 comotives of the United States consume £11,200,000 

 of wood. The whole wood industries of the United 

 States represent, now, an annual expenditure of one 

 hundred million sterling. There, forty thousand arti- 

 sans are engaged alone in woodwork. Here, in Vic- 

 toria, notwithstanding the activity of many saw-miUs, 

 we imported, only last year, timber to the value of 

 £2'70,572 for our own use. As these remarks may 

 find publicity, I have appended further notes on tim- 

 ber-trees, eminently desirable for massive introduc- 

 tion, but do not wish to exhaust by details the pa- 

 tience of this audience. 



But it would be vain to expect that Europe and 

 America will continue forever to furnish for us their 

 timber. The constantly-increasing population and the 

 augmented requirements of advancing industries will 

 render no longer yonder woods accessible also to us 

 before the century passes, because even in those north- 

 ern countries the timber supply will then barely sat- 

 isfy local wants. 



An idea may be formed of forest value when we 

 enter on some calculations of the supply of timber or 

 other products available from one of our largest Eu- 

 calyptus-trees. Suppose one of the colossal Eucalyp- 

 tus amygdalina at the Black Spur was felled, and its 

 total height ascertained to be four hundred and eighty 

 feet, its circumference toward the bage of the stem 



