AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF ACACIAS. 19 
(3) Acacia pycnantha, 100-acre basis, sowed broadcast and thinned 
to 1,200 trees to the acre; land rented at 8 cents an acre a year, under 
the provisions of the wattle-culture act passed in Victoria Colony 
in 1889: 
Ageregate sales of bark, first 7 years, 642 tons... een weap eae a so. $25 120 
Ageregate expenditure, first 7 years, including inter est... ET eee “27 O60 
Prolite © ee ee Cee  enD et toh man anernen st ets es 15, 760 
While these estimates differ considerably, based as they are upon 
various crop prices, land values, production costs, and yields, they 
are still suggestive. In fact, the only pot in common between the 
three plantations was that in each case there was good beeen 
of the soul and careful cultivation. 
The Queensland Agricultural Journal recently Fenerted that in 
Auckland, New Zealand, an otherwise useless tract of land of about 
4,500 acres planted to Alenia decurrens gave the following results: 
Weorecatersales: ok bark. peracre, first-S Veatsa:< 2 = ee S-e soni ose ccs so $142 
INS OLCSAUCI EXPENSES Pel ACTEM MES GO: VEAUScn oS cincish rate > ees 2-8 ek ce 70 
Profit (not including 5 cents per acre per year, and not including inter, 
Gil) pECoUCHS OES 8 GR SOSH Sea ae ectrain ss Solel: Ene RO eh RAI ay aries am a 72 
In South Australia, on the unproductive “‘fern hills” of white sand 
and on dry limestone ridges, acacias grow well. Such land can be 
rented at less than 4 cents per acre a year, and ought to yield from 
$70 to $80 per acre at the end of 8 or 9 years. Better soils will give 
proportionately better yields, but the striking thing about the New 
Zealand and Australian reports is the unanimity of opinion as to the 
vale of wattles upon poor soils. 
SOUTH AFRICA. 
Thirty years’ experience with tanbark wattles in Cape Colony, 
Natal, and other places in South Africa has been quite as interesting 
as the experience with sand-binding acacias. 
Originally introducing Acacia saligna for tanbark, Cape Colony 
made strenuous efforts to plant large areas. In some districts mate- 
rial was needed for huts, fences, and fuel, and this made a demand for 
small stuff which would grow rapidly. This demand led to the plant- 
ing, in some instances, of as many as 20,000 acacias to the acre, the 
plantations being thinned out at the end of the fourth year and the 
wood and bark of the trees removed in thinning being sold. In some 
plantations trees were set in rows 4 feet apart or alternated with 
cluster pines. By 1890 about 150 tons of bark were marketed, and 
in 1891 nearly 2,500 tons, partly from government forests and Sane 
from trees Peloneine to cere 
As soon as the superiority of other tanbark species was recognized, 
Acacia saligna was dropped and better species planted on an exten- 
