415 
The following is taken from my " Some of the Commercial Trees of New South 
vVales " (Forestry Handbook, Part II, Sydney, 1917) : 
I wrote the following note in " Australia To-day " of 1st November, 1911, p. 93 : " The stringy- 
bark (Eucalyptus obliqua) of Tasmania is used for wood-paving, and while Western Australians will not 
agree with the judgment of a Tasmanian expert that ' it is preferable to jarrah,' the statement is evidence 
of the local esteem in which it is held, and gives me an opportunity of reiterating the fact, of which 
abundant proof has come before me, that certain timbers are their best in particular States. . . . 
E. obliqua seems to attain its best development in Tasmania." 
The Rev. (now Bishop) J. W. Dwyer, then of Temora, New South Wales, wrote to me " Re Eucalyptus 
Stuartiana. I often heard from faimers at Bowna, near Albury, where it grows well on flats, that for 
fencing-posts it is pretty lasting if put into the same kind of ground in which it grows, but not elsewhere, 
which may account for the rosy report given by one of your correspondents. . . ." 
I have suggested that every species of tree has an " optimum " district that is to say, a district 
in which that tree grows better than anywhere else ; in other words, produces the most valuable product. 
We should endeavour to learn the optimum district for each species, in order that we may search for other 
districts offering similar conditions and find standing timber, or cultivate the species under those 
conditions. 
We know that certain plants vary exceedingly in regard to their product when grown in different 
districts, e.g., champagne grapes and lavender, and we have much to learn in regard to variation in the 
timber of the same species of tree when grown in different districts. 
For instance, Eucalyptus oUiqua, to which I referred at the beginning of this article, yields a product 
which is deservedly esteemed in parts of Tasmania, but I have known the same timber condemned as 
being of very little value in a certain district of New South Wales . 
I have known high words and sharp controversy to arise between officials of two Australian States 
in the discussion of the merits of a certain timber. Perhaps both were right, but they were certainly 
arguing about the same tree growing in a district which promoted its best development and one which 
certainly did not. We must, therefoie, get away from the idea that a species as we know it is always 
very good or vei y bad. Both Jones and Brown may be right. The rose that we have imported from 
England at great cost because experts speak so highly of it may, in our garden, turn out a very 
disappointing thing. 
I have touched lightly and very imperfectly on a subject which is obviously of very considerable 
importance to the Australian forester, many of whose data he will have to find out himself, for he certainly 
will not obtain them from books. 
The question of the optimum has a very practical bearing, and the forester will 
have to weigh the evidence available to him and consider which forests and which 
districts produce the optimum timber of a given species. Obviously the scientific 
forester will concentrate his best energies on the development of the forests within that 
optimum district, leaving, as far as can be justified, the regions of inferior timber for 
appropriate treatment. 
I anticipate that timber from an optimum district will be regularly specified 
in contracts, where the best quality is required. 
Here we have the key to the situation when we have two men, jealous of the 
reputation of their district or State, arguing as to the merits of a particular timber, 
when one man may have in view the timber from the optimum district, and the other 
timber from a locality which produces an inferior article. 
