2 DEFORESTATION. 
increased vigour, and from its character, if once allowed to develop 
strongly, is more difficult to subjugate than the original trees. Such scrub 
or sucker growth does not always produce good timber, is frequently 
diseased, and will in any case usually take a longer time to produce 
a good timber forest than if the land were freshly and regularly planted. 
In addition, various weeds from the outskirts of the forest now find suitable 
conditions for their development, and rapidly establish themselves. No 
point is more important to the settler on forest land than that he should_ 
clear no more land at a time than he can keep clear and free from weeds. 
Any slackness in this respect soon reduces the land to a condition which, 
from the point of view of cultivation, is as bad as; or even worse, than when 
it was under forest. Not only is the land covered with obnoxious vegetation, 
Lut the land is fouled with seed from which five to ten years’ toil may not 
be sufficient to clear it entirely. If the timber is removed by felling and: 
burning, each portion of ground should be cleared at one operation, and 
then ploughed and used for root crops, followed by leguminous fodder 
crops. Repeated burning over a tract of ground, destroying a little timber 
at a time, leaves the ground hard, baked, devoid of humus, and peculiarly 
dead and inert, while the original ash so favourable to the growth of root 
crops like potatoes has long since been washed out, carrying with it many 
cf the valuable constituents of the soil. To improve the soil, and prevent 
this loss, farmyard manure or green manuring is essential. To clear forests 
off steep hillsides is wanton folly. If there is any good soil, the rains 
and trampling of the stock soon send it down to the gullies, and after 
a few years’ grazing the hillsides become bare and arid. If the ground 
is rocky, a valuable product has been destroyed without even a temporary 
gain. 
PasturaGe Metuops.—Few conditions are more favourable to the 
spread of obnoxious weeds than the open unrestricted grazing, more espe- 
cially of sheep, so common throughout Australia, and this is still more 
aggravated when thé land is overstocked. The animals wander to and fro 
distributing the burred, prickly, hairy, or adhesive seeds of various weeds 
as they go, and continually select and eat out the better pasture plants. 
Obnoxious, prickly, woody, and poisonous plants are usually left untouched 
by healthy, well-fed stock, and their growth is favoured by the continual - 
grazing down of the good fodder plants. The condition of affairs obtain- 
ing in a well-kept garden is thus reversed, the weeds being favoured, and 
the useful plants suppressed. 
A point which needs to be strongly emphasised is that the stock-carrv- 
ing capacity of natural virgin pasture is but slight as compared with its 
stock-carrying capacity when cultivated, or when seeded down after cultiva- 
tion. In virgin pastures useless weeds and useful pasture plants struggle 
fur the upper hand, and the balance is so delicate that one sheep per acre 
may be more than sufficient to upset it, and cause steady and rapid de- 
terioration of the pasture. Open sheep pasturage and stock grazing on 
virgin ground adapted for cultivation is a poor way of utilizing the land, 
and, granted a moderate rainfall, nearly all ground which the plough can 
reach and penetrate can be profitably cultivated in the absence of any 
artificial obstacles. Pastures laid down during rotation farming always 
yield more feed and should keep freer from weeds than virgin pastures, 
tut even the latter can'be greatly improved by manuring, and an occasional 
mowing is of great value in preventing the coarser non-nutritious vegetation 
from re-establishing itself. 
