102 



In Agric. Gazette, N.S.W., February, 1902, will be found a paper by me entitled 

 " Some Australian Vegetable Fibres," which gives a short bibliography of the subject, 

 and briefly refers to a few species. E. amygdalina (probably E. namerosa was chiefly 

 meant, for E. amygdalina was very comprehensive in 1902), when I quote : " The inner 

 bark is adapted for the manufacture of coarse paper, and the same may be said of many 

 other species." 



Then certain Stringybarks (capitellata, eugenioides, macrorrJiyncha, Muelleriana) 

 were referred to. The chief use of the bark is, when removed in large sheets, for roofing 

 purposes, and also for the walls of settlers' huts, also of outhouses. The inner layers 

 are used for hay-bands, and for other uses where a coarse tying material is required. 

 E. capitellata is quoted for door-mats. 



A figure of a basket (Bee-lang), showing good workmanship, and made by Yarra 

 natives out of this fibre is in Brough Smyth's " Aboriginals of Victoria," i, 344. A few 

 more notes will be given later when Aborigines and Eucalyptus are referred to. 



In a paper, " Indigenous Fibrous Plants of Victoria," Viet. Journ. Agric., October, 

 1918, p. 600, J. W. Audas quotes the bark of certain Eucalypts as " suitable for the 

 manufacture of packing and, probably, printing paper . . . coarse paper . . . 

 strong wrapping-paper . . -i— paste-boards." 



In a paper in the same Journal, December, 1918, p. 747, Professor A. J. Ewart 

 corrects some loose ideas on the subject, and following is part of what he said : — ■ 



As the term " fibre plant " has been used in a misleading sense, it may be as well to define it more 

 exactly. Fibres are as much an essential part of the structure of a flowering plant as bones are of a 

 vertebrate animal, so that a list of the fibre plants of Victoria would be merely a list of the flowering plants 

 of Victoria, and would include the ferns and their allies also. The term can, however, be restricted so 

 as to include only those plants whose fibres have been proved to have a definite commercial value 

 as sources of fibre. From this point of view no plants native to Victoria have become recognised fibre 

 plants. A number of the more promising were tested by Mr. Guilfoyle and others many years ago and the. 

 fibres extracted, but none of them has been able to displace any of the recognised sources of fibres. To 

 be able to do this, a new fibre plant must satisfy various conditions, which may be detailed as follows : — 



1. Its fibres must be easily capable of separation and purification. 



2. They must be equal or superior in strength, length, and quality to the class of fibre with which 



they have to compete. 



3. They must be present either in unlimited quantity, or must come from plants which are capable 



of cultivation. 



The exploitation of a fibre plant means a factory, and a factory cannot be dependent upon a 

 precarious or quickly exhausted supply of a wild plant. If the fibre of the latter is sufficiently valuable 

 commercially, the plant is worth cultivating to secure a constant supply, and it must then compete with 

 easily cultivable plants, such as flax, &c. Further, in a country where thousands of tons of straw are 

 burnt annually, not out of wastefulness, but because the price obtainable for the whole yield would not 

 cover the cost of collection and transportation, there is no need to search among wild plants for materials 

 for strawboard or coarse paper pulp. 



The plant fibres of use commercially fall into three main classes. There are, firstly, the fibres 



termed " pappus," which are hairs growing usually from seeds enclosed in pods (cotton, kapok, &c). No 



native plant shows any likelihood of being able to displace any of the plants recognised as sources of this 



type of fibre. The combination of strength, length, and purity in the cotton fibre is unique among plants. 



