TREE CULTURE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 3 



growing in the colony; indeed, in some districts the farmers cannot even 

 get enough wood for this one purpose within easy distance of their 

 holdings, and have to be content with very unsatisfactory fences made 

 of scrub timber and brushwood. Here, then, we have another verv 

 important incentive to planting, and as, in the ordinary course of affairs, 

 the demand for fencing materials will increase as the resources of the 

 colony become developed and the population increases, it becomes more 

 than ever necessary that the woodlands of the country be increased to 

 such an extent as will ensure a sufficiency of fencing materials for all 

 time to come. 



I am, moreover, of opinion that it is the duty of every landowner 

 here to grow trees himself in such quantity as will supply him with all 

 the timber he may require for fencing and domestic purposes. 



These statements are enough to satisfy any thinking person as to the 

 great importance of conserving the existing forests, and planting with 

 young trees the waste and other lands of this fine country, so that the 

 supply of timber may be secured under all circumstances. 



But it is not only the supplying of the various industries of the 

 country with necessary timber that is to be had in view in the preserva- 

 tion of our old forests and planting young plantations, but the present 

 cry for an advanced state of agriculture here demands that a skilful and 

 well-defined system of forest operations be conducted over all for its 

 special benefit. 



It is weU known to all who have given their attention to the improve- 

 ment of lands in any country that the formation of plantations is one of 

 the chief means to this end, and that without a due proportion of these 

 no permanent improvement in this way can ever be attained. Trees are 

 the grand regulators of climate and improvers of the soil, under all 

 circumstances and conditions. 



There is no doubt but that the cause of so much waste land, so to 

 speak, being found in the central parts of this continent, is attributable 

 to the want of trees to give it shelter. Will anyone say that, the 

 great dry wastes at present existing in this country cannot be improved 

 in climate and in soil by a judicious planting of proper sorts of trees on 

 them ? I believe that no one acquainted with the general laws of nature 

 afiecting such subjects wiU deny that these wastes may be made fertile, 

 agriculturally, and made the field for the happy homes of thousands of 

 settlers, by a judicious system of planting, so as to protect them from 

 the local causes which render thero. at present unfit for habitation and 

 settlement. 



Besides, has not the neglect of judicious planting of trees been con- 

 ducive to the present unprofitable state of many of the farms in the 

 older-settled parts of the colony— farms which have no doubt been 

 exhausted by excessive cropping, but which, had they been protected 

 by the shade and shelter of skilfuUy-laid-out plantations, would have 

 been vastlv more remunerative, even with the defective system of 

 farming under which they have been. placed, than they are now ? Hence 

 the necessity there is for every landed proprietor in this colony to plant 

 a certain extent of his subject with trees. 



