138 FOREST CULTURE AND 



Tea, precisely as our drier ridges are verdant with the 

 vine. Erythroxylon-Coco, the wondrous stimulating 

 plant of Peru, should be raised in the mildest and 

 most sheltered forest glens, where the stillness of the 

 air excludes the possibility of cutting frosts. Hop, 

 cultivated as a leading industry in Tasmania since a 

 quarter of a century, will also take a prominent place 

 on the brooks of our mountains. Peru-bark trees of 

 various kinds should in spots so favored be subjected 

 to culture trials. How easily could any swampy de- 

 pression, not otherwise readily of value, be rendered 

 productive by allowing plants of the handsome New 

 Zealand flax lily quietly to spread as a source for fu- 

 ture wealth. How far the demand of material for 

 industrial purposes may quickly exceed the supply 

 may be strikingly exemplified by the fact that hun- 

 dreds of vessels are exclusively employed for bringing 

 the Esparto grass (not superior to several of our most 

 frequent sedges) from Spain to England, to augment 

 the supply of rags for the endless increasing require- 

 ments of the paper-mills. Conversion of manifold 

 material, even saw-dust, into paper, is carried on to a 

 vast extent ; a multitude of samples placed here be- 

 fore you will help to explain how wide the scope for 

 paper material may extend. But the factories want 

 material, not only cheap, but readily convertible, and 

 adapted to particular working. 



In all these selections, a few glances through the 

 microscope, and the result of a few chemical reactions 

 taught in this hall, may at once advise the artisan in 

 his choice. 



Phytologic inquiry is further to teach us rationally 

 the nature of maladies to which plants are subject, 



