4 
Perhaps the New South Wales timber which has been spoken of more than 
any other for wine casks is the silky oak. Mr. Thomas Hardy, of South Australia, 
placed shavings of this wood in light wines for two months without affecting the 
taste and colour of the latter. He pronounces the wood suitable in other respects, 
and therefore suitable for cashing wine, and the opinion of an authority so eminent 
must carry great weight. Silky oak would not leak when split on the quarter, and 
Mr. Hardy has been instituting inquiry as to whether the staves would leak when 
the wood was cut across the grain. Silky oak appears too porous to hold such 
liquids as spirits. 
Formerly it was used to a large extent on the northern rivers of our own 
State, and still in Northern Queensland, for tallow casks. It has also been largely 
used for butter-kegs. It does not appear to be affected by long immersion in brine, 
nor does butter placed in contact with it for any reasonable period acquire any 
appreciable taste of the wood. For all these purposes it must be cut or sawn on the 
quarter, to avoid leakage or soakage. In the old days, before the advent of 
galvanised iron, it was almost exclusively used in the Northern districts for milk- 
buckets and dairy utensils, for which purpose it gave great satisfaction. The 
extension of the use of butter-boxes is causing butter-kegs to be superseded, and 
therefore increased attention should be given to the utilisation of this timber for 
dairy appliances of various kinds, e.g., hands, pats, and rammers for butter. If our 
timber merchants would study the special requirements of butter factories and firms 
and companies which deal wholesale in or export this important commodity, they 
would find that it would be to their advantage. 
Its pretty grain renders it a suitable wood for certain picture frames, and 
Mr. It. D. Hay suggests that it is specially suitable for engravings and photographs. 
Now that Grevillea robustci is getting scarce, I would like to draw public 
attention to what I believe to be a perfect substitute for it. The commonest tree in 
the Dorrigo Forest Reserve is one known to botanists as Orites excelsa, and its 
wood usually passes as silky oak. I examined the timber carefully in the forest, 
and brought a few pieces to Sydney. Everybody I have shown them to pronounces 
them to be silky oak. At the present time, if there is any difference between the 
Orites excelsa timber and that of Grevillea robusta, I do not know what it is, and 
it is evidently not of a superficial character. I was pleased to make this discovery, 
as there is a perfect mine of the silky oak in the Dorrigo. There are millions 
upon millions of feet of it, and at present not a stick is used. But even if it be not 
used for wine casks, the time will come when it will be used for butter or tallow 
casks, or for some other humbler yet useful purpose. 
The Dorrigo is not the only place on the northern rivers, by any means, in 
which this second silky oak can be abundantly obtained. The difficulty in the way 
hitherto has been the cost of carriage, but roads into these places are being gradually 
opened up. 
