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To some extent the trees in Western Australia are gregarious, but many are not so, and different 

 species have varying amounts of denseness of distribution. So that the problem is one of some complexity, 

 but it has to be worked out. Every man who has goods to sell has to say what he has got and where the 

 goods are. Thus we must have the botanical survey, or to save the feelings of persons who look upon 

 the botanist as a merely academic person, call it the forest survey. Not one of our Australian States 

 has progressed much in the direction of making such a survey, so that Western Australia, with its vast 

 areas and sparse population need not feel ashamed of itself in this respect. 



It must be borne in mind that the very foundation of forestry in any State is this particular forest 

 survey. The term is not sufficiently explicit, as it may mean many things, but the accurate indication 

 of the whereabouts of the trees in any State is a condition precedent to the forester being able to get on with 

 his working plan. You may starve the opportunities of the botanist as much as you like, but in this matter 

 he stands firmly as the rock of Gibraltar when he says " No botanical survey, no proper forest 

 administration." 



2. Each State must work out its Botanical Survey. Speaking more particularly 

 of my own State, we require a botanical survey of New South Wales. We have an 

 enormous amount of material for such record in the National Herbarium of New South 

 Wales. We require, as regards this State alone, one man charged with the duty of 

 keeping the records of the survey, and he should as far as possible be relieved from 

 all other duties, except those of systematically collecting. We have merely scratched 

 the surface as regards the distribution of our indigenous plants, and I would impose 

 on the botanical surveyor the additional duty of systematically recording the advance 

 (with dates) of weeds, particularly those infesting agricultural and pastoral lands. Up 

 to the present time we have ascertained the range of most of our indigenous and 

 introduced species in a fortuitous manner. We have, however, now arrived at the time 

 when the records of the plant-survey, as of all other statistics, should be recorded in 

 a proper way. Ideally the record of each species (no matter of what State) should 

 be entered on separate maps of Australia. This map (with the principal physical features 

 and townships printed in pale ink) should be a standard one, selected by the Government 

 Botanists of the various States in conference. No matter how sparse the records, the 

 ideal of one species one map should be borne in mind, but until the work develops a 

 purely provisional arrangement of temporarily placing two or more records on the same 

 map could be adopted . As facts of distribution accummulate, two or more species of 

 a genus could be placed on one map, the curving boundary of each indicated by 

 a different coloured ink. My own method is to indicate each locality by a cross in pencil 

 or ink, and each cross can be joined by a curving boundary line in ink, joining the 

 extreme eastern localities or the extreme western, southern or northern ones, as the 

 case may be. 



Concurrently with this development of the botanical survey in individual 

 States, a Federal botanical survey will be developed. This does not necessarily imply 

 that it will be carried out by a Federal officer, who might not be as well informed of the 

 details of the flora as a State officer. Indeed most important work might be carried 

 out by private botanists. Once particulars of State surveys are published, it will be 



