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of 400. This is made up by grazing fees and the selling of the Marram Grass to other 
States and countries. In fact, the success of Marram Grass at Port Fairy is so obvious 
that you do not hear the sand-hills talked about as a nuisance ; and my opinion is that, 
when all the sand-hills in their jurisdiction are planted, the municipality will be crying 
out for-more. Furthermore, the planting of Marram and the digging it up for export is 
winter work, and this furnishes employment for a large number of men, at 6s. a day, 
precisely at a time when work is slack elsewhere. 
Knowing Marram Grass for a number of years, I had my doubts as to its reputed 
value as a fodder. But I have seen 150 cows feeding on the Marram Grass at Port 
Fairy, and their food was mainly that grass, with little pickings of other plants under 
the tussocks. The grazing over these municipal sand-dunes is a regular business. The 
Council charges the townspeople 6d. per head per week, and this includes taking the 
cows out to the Marram Grass plantations in the morning, and bringing them into the 
town in the evening. Any evening one may see the herdsmen bringing home his mob 
of cows. Arrived at the main street, the cows say good-night to each other, and find 
their own way down the side streets, right and left, to their homes, quicker than school- 
boys do. It is an interesting sight. The citizen pays the Council 6d. per head per week, 
and this fee includes the keep of the beast on the Marram Grass sand-hills, and the 
driving-out of the beast to the sand-hills in the morning and home again at night. 
Keeping a cow is, therefore, within the means of all. 
The Marram Grass is planted on the sea-front at Port Melbourne, in an enclosed 
reserve, and has certainly stopped the encroachment of sand on the streets. I have 
known Port Melbourne for many years, and can speak with definiteness. 
But the greatest work near Melbourne accomplished by Marram Grass is the 
protection of the " short road " between Port Melbourne and Williamstown.* The 
drawback of Williamstown used to be its inaccessibility to Melbourne. The distance of 
the Williamstown Post Office from the Melbourne General Post Office is only 
4^ miles, as the crow flies ; but it was 9 miles by the only route available for heavy 
traffic up to the end of 1896. This has now been reduced to 6 miles. The trouble in 
maintaining a direct road was caused by the shifting sand. In fact, for 2 miles it 
was in a very bad condition, and in one part, for a length of 30 chains, it was almost 
impassable, being entirely disintegrated and destroyed by blown sand. In 1887 the 
Engineer of Reclamation Works in Victoria estimated the cost of raising the road to 
8 feet above low water, and constructing a steel tramway and tarred metal road, at 
17,500. In 1892 the Inspector-General of Public Works proposed to raise the road to 
the 8-feet level, form a foundation through the sand with clay embankment, and 
cover the roadway throughout with 15 inches of metal, for the sum of 8,000. 
Both these amounts were utterly beyond the resources of the two municipalities 
concerned Williamstown and Port Melbourne. The old road had been steadily getting 
worse, but the engineers of the two municipalities put it into first-class condition for 
* For full particular, with diagrams, see a paper written by H. V. Champion, ths Town Surveyor, for the Victorian 
nstiiute of Engineers, entitled, " The Construction of the Williamstown short road, and the use of Marram Gross as A sand- 
stoy." 
