460 



THM AQiiiCULTUBAL JOURNAL. 



were noticed. This procedure has been 

 followed two years, and not an animal has 

 been lost from horsesickness. He is 

 shortly about to sell the specific. It will 

 then be put before the public, and the 

 public will be able, for themselves, to 

 judge of its efi&cacy. 



A Snake Specific. 



Mr. Gilbert Wilkinson has also a snake 

 specific which he also intends to dispose 

 o1 . His specific he affirms to be infallible 

 in cases of ordinary snake bite. Puff- 

 adders are the most common snakes of 

 the canefields, and bites are frequent 

 among the field workers. When a case 

 occurs a dose of the medicine is given, 

 and nearly always the bitten man or 

 woman goes back and remains at work. 

 There are, he says, no after ill effects, 

 and after ill effects are common in cases 

 of recovered snake-bitten people. The 

 drug grows only on the coast. 



Forestry. 



Mr Anthony Wilkinson, to whom I 

 now retui-ii, takes keen interest in many 

 things, and 2)erhaps the subject in which 

 his inter>'st is keenest is forestry. The 

 enthusiasm is not of yesterday. Already 

 in 1<S83 he publicly advocated in a paper, 

 read before the Victoria Planters' Associa- 

 tion, the desirability of the Government 

 taking the subject in hand, and since 

 then, whenever opportunities have offered, 

 he had done all in his power to awaken 

 the interest of his fellow colonists in 

 what appears to him to be a matter of the 

 very first importance. The climatic 

 benefits induced by tree planting take the 

 first place in Mr. Wilkinson's arguments 

 on the question . He points out how the rain- 

 fall on the north coast has decreased since 

 the opening up of the country by the de- 

 struction of the forest and bush, and by 

 reference to instances of tracts of land in 

 foreign countries hitherto affected by 

 drought, which have secured good rain- 

 falls by tree planting, he urges similar 

 action on the coast to recover the rainfall 

 which, in the early days, was normal to 

 tbe disti'ict. In Victoria County, Mr. 

 Wilkinson estimates that over forty thou- 

 sand acres of forest and bush have been 

 cut down during the last thirty years, and 

 the steady dinjinution of annual lainf'all 

 averages is proved by records. Ten 



inches more of rain a year, " said Mr. 

 Wilkinson," would giv'e planters, with 

 their present acreage, fully 25 per cent, 

 more of sugar, and the money returns of 

 the industry would benefit by a similar 

 percentage." Mr. Wilkinson had much to 

 say upon the increased temperature and 

 radiation from the great areas now under 

 cane and mealie cultivation which repel 

 passing rainclouds, and about drought- 

 stricken countries rendered fertile by the 

 systematic planting of trees, and countries 

 rendered barren through the destruction 

 of moisture-alluring forests. On these 

 matters, however, much has been pub- 

 lished in the Journal, and therefore I 

 shall proceed to the remarks which are 

 the outcome of his personal experience. 

 Thinking of what Mr. Willie Nicholson 

 had said about native trees, I asked Mr. 

 Wilkinson if he agreed. 



" No ; I do not. I say nothing against 

 experimenting on a sm^ll scale for par- 

 ticular purposes, but for useful, profitable, 

 trees, which would soon become moisture- 

 attracting forests, we must go to Australia. 

 Why ; I am told lots of the native trees 

 in the Karkloof are over 500 years old ! " 



Suitable Trees. 



" From your own experience which are 

 the trees you recommend." 



" I have several favourites, but I am 

 inclined to put the Rostrata or Red Gum 

 of South Australia in the first place. The 

 wood is straight in the grain, it is very 

 hard, and sleepers would have twice the 

 life of the soft timber ones imported. 

 Then the Tereticornis and the Viminalis, 

 or Torvale as it is called in this locality, 

 are also good. All of these three trees 

 seed themselves." Mr. Wilkinson here 

 drew my attention to the young self-sown 

 trees growing up outside the plantation, 

 and where trees had been cut down. 

 From his experiments he has decided that 

 these gums should be planted not closer 

 together than 1 2 feet. " Between the young 

 trees 1 plant," he continued, two rows 

 of mealies ; the cultivating of the mealies 

 is of the greatest advantage to the trees, 

 and the profits of the corn go to pay the 

 expense of the tree planting. Mealie 

 crops can be taken for a couple of years. 

 At the expiry of 20 years the plantation 

 should be worth £300 for sleeper timber ; 

 say 300 trees at £1 each, giving six or 



