58 J. H. MAIDEN. 
conditions, when it is unable to grow a new one. I would like to 
see measured areas of brigalow scrub cut on the principles I have 
indicated, and compared with scrub on adjacent land. I have no 
fear of the result, but scrub-cutting carried out carelessly or 
indiscriminately is just another name for pruning, and will prob- 
ably result in a fine healthy crop of suckers which will require 
treatment at a greatly enhanced cost. 
Did time permit, I would like to dwell on the subject of ‘‘weed- 
killers,” a matter to us in Australia of national importance, how- 
ever strange it may sound to European ears. TI look upon weed- 
killers as only of very partial application, as they often merely 
scotch the weed, leaving its vitality practically unimpaired. With 
some weeds, under special circumstances, some (very few) weed- 
killers may be made to do useful work in the hands of carefully 
directed men. In any case weed-killers ought only to be paid for 
by bills having a currency of one, two or three years, provision 
being made to return the bills to drawer in the very probable 
event of the weed-killer not doing its work. 
I think that weed-killers, where large weeds, such as prickly- 
pear, sweet-briar, etc., are concerned, should be placed in the same 
category as mattocks and picks; they are simply to be used as @ 
means for destroying the plant at a period when it can no longer 
draw upon its accumulated nutritive store, its starchy capital in 
fact. 
4, AUSTRALIAN TIMBERS.—a. School of Timber-research.—There 
is a vast field for research in the histology of colonial timbers. 
Very little has been done in this direction, and the work is inter- 
esting and full of promise of valuable results. How to get the 
work done is the difficulty, and it is not easy to make suggestions. 
Some of us have been spasmodically engaged in the work for @ 
number of years, but it is work unsuited to the attention of mea 
with many other claims on their time, and endeavour might perhaps 
be made to interest young University graduates in the matter. 
Students of biology should be well grounded in histology if they 
