22 TASMANIAN FORESTS: THEIR BOTANY AND ECONOMICAL VALUE. 
year of growth, he was induced to test the truth of this. There 
was a blue gum tree in his garden in Hobart Town, the age of 
which he was sure of, as his brother had planted it ee 
years previously. He felled it and counted the rings, and fou 
them to be thirty-six in number, or two for every year. Fis 
this, and from the shedding of the bark as described, and a Tong 
series of observations, he concludes that the sap rises twice in 
the year. He has for many years watched the growth of the 
trees, and he believes that for the first twenty years the average = 
growth is about one inch in diameter for each year. Out 0 
Dieusends of trees felled or cut in his mill, he has not found one 
reticle - my e exatination of ‘the piel of young saplings in the 
_ gnee cr which we are now clearing. Number i 
ongest saplings, Abit thats : size across the heart-wood where ~ 
the rings cease, one inch. The rings, I observe, are not an equal 
distance from ‘each other, some of them being three tim es the _ 
size of the others. On making inquiries I find beyond a doubt 
that it i - exactly sixteen years “this summer since we last crop 
was taken off the paddock.—Yours truly, D. Rarroy.” From 
these facts I think we may — adopt Mr. Hill's conclusion 
that there are two rings of growth for each year, and that the 
— trees of the forest, the haa timber of Tasmania, range 
m fifty to seventy-five years old 
= may mention here incidentally two inconveniences to which 
the Tasmanian forests are subjected. One is the “ tick.” is is 
a small insect which lives on the fern leaves, It burrows readily 
under the skin of any animal upon which it creeps and produces 
much irritation and inconvenience. It is said sometimes to cause 
the death of dogs, calves, and goats. I do not know whether the 
— 8 is the same as that which is found in the fern gullies of 
ew South Wales and Queensland, where the bite is regarded, 
though erroneously, as almost venomous. The other pest is the 
abun ndance of leec 8 which swarm the undergrowth. After even 
slight and unless a pele 
takes precautions against them, and bese a careful watch, ne 
_ may not only be painful but “dangerous in their attac! attacks. : 
° 
