PKESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 59 



zealous Director of Forests has been appointed. Not only 

 is there increased desire to know more about our forests, 

 but we have initiated the planting of indigenous and exotic 

 trees, work which had been scarcely touched fifteen years 

 ago. 



I repeat my suggestion that it might be possible to set 

 apart a moderate area (say two hundred acres), of Grown 

 Lands in a suitable situation within forty of fifty miles of 

 Sydney. It might be possible to establish within this area 

 a Forestry School, where young men might receive educa- 

 tion in forestry subjects under conditions as they exist in 

 the State, and if the site of the arboretum were at no great 

 distance from a natural forest, the educational potentialities 

 would be greater still. 



The next generation will probably establish a country 

 branch of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, consisting of a 

 readily accessible site of several hundreds of acres, within 

 say thirty or forty miles of Sydney. It will be away from 

 the smoke of a large city, and it should contrast, as regards 

 its soil, with the natural barrenness of the Sydney garden. 

 It should afford accommodation for (a) a geographical 

 arrangement of plants, (b) an arrangement into families, 

 with so much ground available that every family can be 

 represented by the plants which will grow in the district, 

 (c) economic ; in this section endeavour will be made to 

 cultivate typical specimens of as many economic plants as 

 possible; some of them, not conspicuously important for 

 their uses, may be placed under (b). 



From its distance from the metropolis it would be very 

 little visited except by serious students, and while it would 

 not take the place of the Sydney institution, it would be 

 found to fill a real gap in the State's requirements. 



4. Phyto-chemistry and the botanic garden. — The too- 

 early death of Dr. M. Greshoff of Haarlem, Holland, leads 



