8 
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
various parts of the Garden. At the same time, I have already paid 
considerable attention during the past year to the cultivation of this 
most interesting and charming tribe of plants, with which I have long 
been associated in the course of my travels in the tropics. There are 
few of these graceful plants to be met with in the public gardens of this 
city ; and yet a great many kinds would thrive here quite as well as in 
the other colonies. In order that I might the more readily naturalise 
here our Australian beautiful kinds — the Livistonia or Corypha 
Australis, and Seaforthia elegans (two species which are found far 
north in Queensland as well as in the cooler clime of Illawarra, 50 or 
60 miles south of Sydney), I introduced a quantity of seeds from the 
latter locality, and they have germinated freely. We have now some 
hundreds of nice plants, which shall be liberally used in the decoration 
of the Government House grounds as well as the Botanic Garden. 
The lifting of large trees at certain seasons has generally been looked 
upon as a great mistake. Many opinions have been expressed to me 
that to lift a large tree say 35 or 40 feet in height — is utterly impossible 
in this colony. When doing so in these gardens during the past year, 
I have often been told that they would perish. I need only instance 
the fact that large Norfolk Island pines, Bunya Bunya, Pinus insignis, 
Cupressus macrocarpa, Brachy chiton populneum, B. Acerifolium, Cordy- 
lines, and many others, averaging from 20 to 30 feet in height, have 
been lifted with perfect success during a season hitherto generally 
considered unfavorable for such operations. In my opinion, and it has 
been the secret of my success — in such a changeable climate as this, 
when a plant is suddenly forced into active growth, and this growth is 
observed in its commencement the evergreen and even the deciduous 
plant, may be lifted if due precautions are taken in digging far enough 
away from the tree, so as to preserve the numerous fibrous roots which 
are the principal feeders of the tree. This can only be accomplished 
by carefully combing them out of the soil with a fork ; and when close 
to the larger roots of the plant, leaving sufficient soil to preserve them, 
working carefully under them, transporting them with caution to their 
destined place on a two- wheeled truck, and, when replanting, spreading 
out the fibrous roots, and staying the tree. They will not be retarded 
in growth in the slightest degree. In the Botanic Gardens and the 
Domain also are ample proofs of the correctness of this theory. Hence 
it appears that the formal rows of Araucarias, Cunninghami, excelsa, 
and Bidwilli, Pinus Halipensis, Cupressus, and many others, which now 
stretch across that portion of the Botanic Garden towards Government 
