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The following brief article, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald for 
15th June, 1908, entitled " The Value of the Kurrajong," emphasises its fodder-value I- 
Despite recent rains, winter prospects throughout Riverina cannot be too bright. The cold 
season set in far earlier than usual ; there have been sharp frosts, and further heavy losses of stock seem 
inevitable. One lesson of the severe dry spell was that people who went in systematically for ensilage 
right through the abundant years, in the recent time of leanness reaped the advantage of their foresight. 
Not a few of the large farmers and the pastoralists were in a position to tide over the winter without any loss 
of stock, though the cost of keeping them alive may be very heavy. As a general thing, unfortunately, 
the people on the land are apt to be careless. After a good season or two they forget the bad years and 
trust to luck; and when the trial conies they are found overstocked, and in other ways unprepared to 
meet it. 
In different parts of the country the kurrajong has once more demonstrated its groat economic 
value during periods of drought. One farmer who has but a small clump of the trees on his holding, has kept 
his sheep in fair condition for the past three months on kurrajong foliage. As soon as this is exhausted 
he may be under the necessity of paying from 7 to 8 per ton perhaps more for fodder for his stock. 
So far it has cost him nothing to keep them alive and in reasonably good condition. Scores of others right 
along the Murrumbidgee have done the same. It is amazing in view of the fact that this tree is a good 
fodder plant, that stock eat it with avidity, even to the pulpy branches, and that it flourishes in its lush 
greenness year in and year out, independent of droughts, and is a prolific agent in thegcneration of moisture 
that more attention is not given to the care and the culture of this natural resister of aridity. Countless 
thousands of beautiful trees have been destroyed because people could not see far enough ahead to realise 
what they were doing, or were indifferent as to the future. In this way the kurrajong has been cut down 
wholesale in the past, as in times of drought stockowners found this easier than lopping the limbs off. The 
advantages of the latter process are that the immediate supply of fodder is as abundant as if the trees were 
felled ; a denser growth of foliage is promoted, and the future is provided for in so far as it is within 
the scope of the kurrajong to provide for it. If people would only learn from experience bitter and 
ruinous in many cases and take a common-sense view of the matter, we should have extensive cultivation of 
the kurrajong instead of neglect and, often, positive, wanton destruction. 
There is an article entitled " Scrub-cutting for Sheep-feed," by C. J. Woollett, 
in the Agricultural Gazette, N.S.W., for. June, 1915, p. 466, which is very useful. 
Although he refers to other plants, he mainly deals with the Kurrajong, and illustrations 
of the method of lopping the branches are shown from photographs. The lopping is 
rough pruning, and I only wish that pastoralists would lop as neatly as Mr. Woollett's 
men did, for a good deal of this work that I saw, especially during the 1902 drought, 
was simply hacking of the trees, without regard to their welfare or 'symmetry in the 
future. 
Bark. A strong fibre is obtained from the bark. It is used by the aborigines 
for making fishing-nets, both in east and west Australia. Fibre of this kind may be 
obtained by soaking the bark in water for a week or more, and then beating with a mallet, 
when the various layers separate out. Almost, if not all, the species of Brachychiton 
are used by the aborigines for a similar purpose. 
" Fibre-twine made from the inner bark, dried in the sun, and drawn into shreds, 
for dilly-bags. (Middle) Palmer River, Gulf of Carpentaria, known as " Kalan." 
(Roth, Bulletin No. 1, N.Q. Ethnography.) 
Roots. An early record by Dr. George Bennett (" Wanderings in N.S.W." 
&c., i, 264, 1834) says that the aborigines in the Tumut district eat both the young 
roots and shoots of the tree. " Some of the roots are described to be a foot in circum- 
ference, like the stalk of a cabbage, consisting of medullary and fibrous substance, 
having a sweetish and agreeable taste." 
