33 
hole, eighteen inches deep, is bored with a 114 inch auger down the 
centre of the stump after the tree has been felled. Into this hole 
two or more ounces of saltpetre are put, or it is filled up with 
kerosene and plugged up. In fine weather, in the spring, the plug 
is removed, and about a quarter of a pint of kerosene is put in if 
the saltpetre has been used, or the hole is again filled up with the 
oil, if oil has been previously applied. This being set on fire, it 
is said the stump will continue to burn away quietly until both 
stump and roots are consumed. Personally, I am of opinion that 
a little dynamite properly applied, or one of the other methods 
of clearing mentioned in this chapter, are cheaper and more satis- 
factory in the end, where the hard burning wood of Western 
Australia is concerned. 
There is a fourth method which is certainly the most ex- 
peditious, but it requires a large amount of capital, and would 
only pay where a large area of country had to be cleared. I refer 
to the use of ‘‘traction engines’’ fitted with long wire ropes, by 
means of which the trees can be pulled down as they stand with- 
out any preliminary preparation, and then ‘‘snigged’’ up into 
rows eight or ten chains apart, and there left for all time or to be 
burnt off at leisure. If this process 1s followed, there is nothing 
to do but to fill up the holes and set the stump-jump plough to 
work. 
This method of clearing land in the big timber country of the 
South-West has been carried out with much success by the Gov- 
ernment, a charge per working hour being made to cover the cost 
of wages, fuel, and depreciation. The chief objections raised are 
that trees sometimes snap under the strain of the wire rope and 
the stump has to be extracted. Moreover, when large size green 
trees are pulled down a great mass of the earth constituting the 
subsoil remains attached to the roots, leaving cavities in the 
ground which have to be filled with that cold, raw, tenacious soil. 
Burnina OFF. 
With some varieties of trees it is much easier to get them 
down than to get rid of them after they are down. This is 
particularly the case when the timber has not been previously 
killed by ring-barking. The usual method of getting rid of the 
timber is by burning it, first eutting the smaller limbs up into 
convenient lengths for handling with an axe or crosscut saw. The 
larger limbs and butts of the smaller trees should be also eut up 
and pulled up to the largest trunks by horse power. The mistake 
is sometimes made, by those who have not done this work before, 
of stacking up all the small timber on the trunks and setting fire 
to the whole lot at once. This should not be done except in the 
ease of trees that are dead and consequently dry, and ‘that are 
