CAUSES OF THIS. 
XXIX 
the wandering habits of the natives on the 
other, which induce them to clear the country 
before them by conflagration, operate equal- 
ly against the growth of timber and under- 
wood. 
But there is another circumstance that ap- 
peal’s to have escaped Mr. Dawson’s observa- 
tion ; which is the actual property of the trees 
themselves, as to the quantity of vegetable mat- 
ter they produce in decay. Being a military 
man, I cannot be supposed to have devoted 
much of my time to agricultural pursuits ; but 
it has been obvious to me, as it must have been 
to many others, that in New South Wales, the 
fall of leaves and the decay of timber, so far 
from adding to the richness of its soil, actually 
destroy minor vegetation. This fact was brou ght 
more home to me in consequence of its having 
been my lot to spend some months upon Nor- 
folk Island, a distant penal settlement attached 
to the Government of Sydney. There the abun- 
dance of vegetable decay was as remarkable as 
the want of it on the Australian Continent. I 
have frequently sunk up to my knees in a bed 
of leaves when walking through its woods ; and. 
