BOTANIC AND DOMAIN GARDENS. 
13 
When the top of this hill has been removed so that the lawn can be 
formed and the approaches to the house are complete — which I hope 
will be the case in the course of six months — I shall then be enabled to 
make the lawn of buffalo grass, and to arrange the groups and single 
specimens. There is an abundance of material in the way of plants, 
specially provided such as they are, propagated from those in the 
Garden which can be made ready at a moment’s notice. In the propa- 
gating department, I have endeavoured to multiply all of those orna- 
mental trees and shrubs which will be of use for the Domain and 
Governor’s grounds. Besides these I have saved (by taking up from 
that portion of the Botanic Gardens near the lagoon previously alluded 
to where the lawn is being formed) the superfluous shrubs and trees, 
and planting them in rows ready for use. Nothing has therefore been 
destroyed . 
I have ploughed a piece of ground in the Domain for the reception 
of various grasses, which will be planted on a large scale. I have 
always borne in mind the importance to the colony generally of this 
experiment, but want of space in the Botanic Garden prevented me 
from doing more than propagating the different kinds and planting 
them in rows until more extended space was available. The Botanic 
Garden reserve to which I have previously alluded will be of invalu- 
able service in this matter. Amongst these grasses “the Buffalo grass” 
(of which at the time of mentioning it in my first annual report I had 
but a small quantity) I have now propagated so largely that I could 
very shortly be able to supply squatters and others with this splendid 
grass which besides being of highly ornamental appearance is as I 
previously stated, a first-class fodder grass tenaciously resisting the 
most trying heat — a very valuable quality in this colony. I remember 
that when in Brisbane Mr. Lewis A. Bernays the President of the 
Acclimatisation Society there, pointed out to me the fact that the deer 
which were then browsing, selected the little strip of Buffalo grass 
before any other in the paddock and had nibbled it quite down ; and I 
was often told by gentlemen who had received from Mr. Walter Hill 
Director of the Brisbane Gardens a few patches to put on their runs 
that the cattle preferred it so much to other grasses, that the difficulty 
was to propagate it unless in a specially enclosed paddock, as it was fed 
down to the roots in summer time. Sheep have been known to eat the 
roots greedily, and thrive on them, when not a blade of grass was 
to be had. It must be remembered that though the Buffalo grass as 
seen upon the edgings I am now making presents a very smooth 
appearance, that even in poor soils where it is not cut, it attains the 
