34 
man's paradise, and visited yearly by many thousands of people to 
enjoy the resources which have been created by acclimatisation. 
That this subject has more than a sentimental significance may 
be gathered from the fact that some of our great industries are built 
upon its products. 
Take, for instance, the rubber industry in the East Indies, 
where all the trees cultivated are the progeny of a few Para rubber 
trees (llerea lira.? Mentis) introduced to Singapore less than 50 
years ago. The same is the case in connection with the quinine in- 
dustry in Java, whence a very large proportion of the world's supply 
of this indispensable drug is obtained but, perhaps, speaking as I 
am to an Australian audience, I might well depend upon the example 
of an acclimatised animal which has done more to add to tlie wealth 
of Australia than any other — 1 refer to the merino sheep. 
One advantage of acclimatisation is that it is not one-sided. As 
well as receiving: benefits, most countries give them in return, and 
instances of this are not lacking in the case of Australia. We have 
sent our euealypts practically all over the world — in North America, 
South America, Southern Europe, South Africa, Asia, the Tas- 
manian blue gum has become a familiar tree, while South Africa 
to-day is sending us, to tan onr leather, wattle bark taken from 
trees the progeny of those introduced into that country from Aus- 
tralia. 
Before the war, annually, large numbers of our kangaroos were 
sent to Germany for release in public and private parks, and the 
German people much appreciated, as a food, the flesh of this much 
u n der-ra t ed a n i m a 1 . 
Coming now to what has been done in Australia, we find that 
in Tasmania, the Island State, the first instances of useful acclima- 
tisation have taken place. How the enthusiasts of the Sixties and 
Seventies managed with the slow transport facilities of the day 
to bring from the Homeland the ova of trout and salmon is hard 
to understand. However, this feat was accomplished, and in their 
new home these fish did well and in a few years provided the stock 
for the New Zealand rivers. Bed deer, too, sent from Tasmania, were 
the progenitors of those which now range the hills of Maoriland. 
The other Australian States followed this lead either by the 
expenditure of Government funds or by the liberality of public- 
spirited individuals, until we see to-day that nearly all the streams 
reaching* the ocean on the eastern and south-eastern coasts provide 
excellent trout-fishing, and some of these fish are found in the tribu- 
taries of the Murray and Darling River system. Deer, too, have 
been introduced in many places and have done well. English pheas- 
ants and partridges would, perhaps, have stood a better chance of 
success had it not been for the fact that in an excess of zeal some 
enthusiastic devotees of the chase found it necessary for their peace 
of mind to hunt the fox in the land of their adoption, and this am- 
