A number of oar timbers are, LoweTer, being tested as regards their 

 suitability for wood-carving, and there is reason to suppose that we possess 

 a fair number of timbers useful for this purpose. My own feeling is one of 

 regret that the art of wood-carving has been so neglected in this Colony, as 

 it is a useful art, and, as time rolls on, a considerable amount of employment 

 will be available, both to men and women carvers of decorative work, for 

 fittings of buildings, furniture, &e., to say nothing of more purely art 

 objects for the decoration of the home, &c. And not only will wood-carving 

 prove a remunerative occupation for many people, and a useful accomplish- 

 ment for persons of leisure, but it will be the means of drawing public 

 attention to the texture and properties of our native timbers, and of utilising 

 some of those which at the present time are put to no particular purpose. 



Supply of seasoned Colonial Timbers, true to name. 



As a consistent advocate for many years of the use of colonial timbers, I 

 have become familiar with the oft-repeated objection, " What is the good of 

 advocating the use of colonial timbers when we rarely can buy any already 

 seasoned ? " It is a fact that very few varieties of seasoned colonial 

 timbers are kept in stock by our timber merchants. Timber merchants are 

 like other tradesmen in endeavouring to keep a stock of any article that 

 may sell, but we cannot expect them to run their business on sentiment ; in 

 other words, to convert their timber-yards into sample museums. Conse- 

 quently, in the first, place, we require to educate our own people in regard 

 to the merits of our timbers, and then they will endeavour to use more of 

 them. I think that, as regards the general public, a certain amount of 

 sentiment would not be out of place in endeavouring to encourage the use 

 of colonial timbers. I mean that, having satisfied himself that a certain 

 colonial timber is suitable for a certain purpose, the Australian citizen might 

 well put himself to a little trouble to cause his want to be supplied. These 

 new timbers of a new country have to work their way to public recognition, 

 and it is often far easier to continue to use an old and well-tried timber than 

 to use a colonial substitute, however meritorious. 



I know something of the practical difficulties which beset a timber mer- 

 chant in Sydney, for instance, in obtaining a supply of a certain timber 

 growing in a forest (say) hundreds of miles away, procuring it both true to 

 name and in a seasoned condition. I have often pondered over the matter, 

 and have wondered whether, seeing that the State is the principal proprietor 

 of forests, and that it has already a staff of forest officers, whether State 

 depots (under lease or otherwise), might not be established", where stocks of 

 timber might be held, such timber having been felled at the proper time, 

 seasoned for a suitable period, and branded with a mark which would 

 guarantee its true name. To carry out this plan would necessarily require a 

 State subsidy for a time, but I think that, under all the circumstances, a 

 reasonable subsidy would be justifiably spent. In a few years I feel con- 

 vinced that the advantages of seasonably felling, of seasoning, and of pro- 

 perly naming our timbers, would become so apparent that private enterprise 

 would take matter up, and the State could withdraw from what might, at 

 first sight, appear interference with private enterprise. We are at the 

 present time giving our producers object lessons in many ways, and I do not 

 think that a little State guidance in regard to the utilisation of our forest 

 wealth would be either illogical or undesirable. It is, of course, understood 

 that in making the above crude suggestions, I am only expressing my 

 individual opinion. 



