Aprit. 2) 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
649 
FUEL FOR TEA ESTATES : THE 
AUSTRA.LIA.lSr ACACIAS. 
Following Mr. Rutherford's warning about sup- 
plies of tiniVer and fuel for tea estates; cornea Mr. 
Kellow's thinly letter, giving the results of his ex- 
perience as (0 the value of two of the Australian 
acacias, the " blackwood " and the "black wattle '' 
(two allied but very dissimilar trees, which ou;*ht 
never to be confoundod). — the first as a valuable 
timber-yielder ; the second, as, to some extent, a 
source of timber, but chielly and eminently valu- 
able as a rapid fuelproduoer, from its extraor- 
diary propensity to form dense grovos of plants, 
sent up from its many, Strong and widely spread- 
ing roots. To give this propensity full play, all 
that is necessary is to scrape off the surface soil 
in the neighbourhood. Indeed, the great difficulty 
istok<epa path clear in contiguity to this species 
of wattle. Our interesting visit to Albion estate, to 
which Mr. Kellow refers, convinced us of the 
correctness of an opinion whijb wo have held for 
many years, that while no greater plague amongst 
coffee, tea, or ciuohon .1 plants ex si- than Acacia de- 
citrrens (A. dealbata is just as b id), no bettor 
plant can be grown in a separate locality as a fuel 
yieldor. Of course it oould be grown along ridges, 
or on the top of knolls in th; interior of estates 
and prevented by means of deep drains from 
spreading beyond certain limits, but it had far better, 
as a rule, have a separate sits allotted to it. For 
shelter purposes we should prefer the beautiful and 
valuable Orevillea tobusta, a- other acacia, but with 
no tendency to send up sprouts from its roots. This 
tree is a fairly rapid grower, and it sends out abundance 
of lateral branches which can, with advantage, be 
lopped and used for fuel as the tree advances in 
height. After largo exp donee of the eucalypti 
which— especially the blue-gum— grow very rapidly, 
our two favourite trees for growingon estites_(by 
road sides and round houses and lima; aro Crevillea 
and toon (Cedrela toona.) The only fault of the 
latter is its liability, when young, to have its top 
broken off in storms. But it soon grows again and 
coppices well. • Its fine timber is known popularly 
as " red oedar," although butmioally it is wide — 
as under from the cedars, which, by the way, do not 
seem to take kindly to our Ceylon hill climate. 
The quality of grevillea timber is shown by the fact 
that it is the one most used in Australia for the 
staves of tallow casks. We have, on Abbotsford, 
some of theso trees about 13 years old, lit for timber 
yielding, but they aro cherished with the hopo, not 
largely realized as yet, that they will yield supplies 
of seed. Blue-gum trees, from 10 to 18 years of 
age, have b en cut down, nn 1 have yielded large 
supplies of whito, solid timber, good for many pur. 
poses, but apt to crack (externally) and warp 
badly in seasoning. One specimen grown at 4.S00 
feet elevation, out down in its thirteenth year, was 
considerably over 100 feet high and gave a vory largo 
number of cubio feet of timber. Wo have 
a memorandum of the really remarkable figures 
for girth nt the root and at different distances 
up the noble stem, with the quantity of service- 
able, though to the carpenter troublosomo, timber 
yielded, which we shall publish when wo lay our 
hands on tho papor. Tuo " blaekwuod" (Acacia 
nulanoxylon) is by no means so faBt a grower as 
Kucalyptu* glubulut, nor will it yield anything like 
.10 much timber, area lor area, but the quality of 
the wool is immenuoly superior. It compares in 
truth with our ebony in donsily and grain, and 
it much bolter suited for a multi'.u lo ol juirp • 
among it whi di Von Mueller mentions "furniture, 
railroad cars, boat building, tool handle*, crutches, 
organ building, casks, billiard tables, pianofortes, 
ea 
<fcc." The Baron adds that the fine-grained wood 
is cut into veneers ; it takes a fine polish and is 
considered almost equal to walnut. Valuable as 
this tree is, i-, also ought to be excluded from 
planta'ions, except whero it can have its power 
of root-sprea ling limited. Although in a much 
smaller degree, this acacia al ;o sends up plants 
from its roots, sometiin"8 at long distances away. 
There is a fine specimen near Abbotsford "old 
bungalow (now rebuilt, largely with blue-gum timber) 
which was allowed to grow permanently in a small 
wooden box in which it wa-; received with other 
Australian filings about a do^en years back, t 
is now a fine parent tree, with half-a-dozen of its 
well -grown root-progeny around it, all with the 
same clean straight stems and handsome pyramidal 
habit of branch and leaf growth. Our common tree 
parasite, the lorantkus, is apt to specially attack this 
tree, as may be seen in the case of old specimens 
in Nuwara Eliya, but this pest can be easily re- 
moved by a cooly armed with a long pole and a 
sickle or knife attached to it. " Blackwood" trees 
must have been cut down in Ceylon, and it would 
be interesting to learn how the timber of trees 
grown in our island coincided with the reputation 
attained in Australia.* There, when the eucalypts 
are mercilessly " ringed " with reference to pas- 
turage, the " blaokwood " trees are carefully 
spared. Although large numbers of the old 
gum trees in Australia are hollowed (the 
draft thus created adding to intensity of fires, 
as wo were able personally to notice in 
a fire amidst the tall trees at Fernshaw), 
we have not noticed any tendency to "piping" 
(if that is, as we presume, another term for be- 
coming holiow) in eucalypts grown in Ceylon. 
While we do not suppose that any timber tree 
can in rapidity of growth and cubic quantity of 
wood, for tho carpenter or the furnace, excel the 
Tasmanian blue gam (E. globulus), and while 
tho iron-bark, jarrah and many other grand Aus- 
tralian eucalypts and acacias are flourishing in 
Ceylon, we do not think we are wrong in the 
conclusion that the chief boons bestowed upon us 
in tho shape of plants from Australasia, consist 
of the three acacias : — 
Grevillea robustn (branches fuel; stem timber). 
A. melanoxylon ( do. do. ) 
A. decurrens (fuel mainly; largerstems timber). 
We recollect Mr. W. Cotton telling us that noth- 
ing could be better for mamoty handles than 
stems of this latter plant, which can be easily 
propagated by seed as recommended by Mr. 
Kellow, or, more readily, we should say, by tak- 
ing up root pieces and planting them where they 
can rapidly indulge their spreading habit. 
We do not dwell on the value of the bark of 
A. decurrenit, but when large groves are grown, it 
may pay planters when coppicing them for fuel to 
Roparato the bark, grind and ship it.t Wo suspect 
Australia oan supply all that is wanted of wattlo 
• On the Nilitiris, a Hording to Col. Beddome, it has 
not been deemed equal to blue-gum timbor. Sonio 
trues cut 01 Naseby, Nuwa a Elli\ a gayo a serviceable 
timber, aud the Into Be v. W. Oiikley had some very 
neHt cabinet woik made from slabs of A. iiulttnojyltni, 
t For a full and interesting nrticlo on wattle 
cultivation for bark, wo refer to the March number of 
the Trapieai Agriculturist, Mr. Brown, tho Forester 
of South Australia, calculate* that 1()0 aores of land, 
costing i'S por aero and yielding j ton* of bark per 
aero, worth £a per ton. WOllld yield 7 per cent 011 
expenditure and a profit over and above thin of 
II. Ins. It might pay a Company to form a plant- 
ation of 1.000 acriB on L'va pataffll land, iu nr tM 
fdUlei, which oould bo vupplivd with fuel, while tha 
bark was shipped for tho into of English tanner*. 
