62 
Mr. Robert Kaleski, Mountain Top, Dorrigo, writes:— 
Timber light yellow, very free, light, and easily worked. Durable if protected from the weather. 
When advanced in age generally attacked by the borer. Sometimes used for shingles, rails and palings ; 
life for these is about eight years, some much more durable than others. Stains very much if welted in 
the lou. 
® I 
Grows only in clay soils, seeming to prefer heavy white clay. Never grows in rich land; generally 
found in large patches, though occasionally an odd tree or two may be found isolated. 
Drawings of microscopic sections of the following woods, Araucaria Cun- 
ninghamii , excelsa, and Bidwilli will be found, by Dr. FJ. Tassi, in Bull. Lab. orto 
botanico di Siena (viii, Fasc. 1-4, p. 46). 
Pine for Blitter-boxes. —I wrote, many years ago :— 
There is one use, and an increasingly important one, to which Colonial Pine may be put, and I ask 
our Richmond and Clarence River millers to take it to heart. I allude to butter-boxes. An enormous 
(juantity is required every year for New South Wales butter, and yet this Colony, with all its pine forests; 
fails to supply timber to case its own butter. I believe the wood to be a suitable one for the purpose, but 
some of our northern saw-millers hardly realise that they are allowing a good trade to slip away. Colonial 
Pine is very light when well seasoned, and it may be cheaply coated with a thin layer of paraffin, if 
necessary. 
In 1894 the manager of the Fresh Food and Ice Company, Sydney, wrote 
to me :— 
So far the best kind of wood for use in the manufacture of boxes for packing butter has been the 
New Zealand Kauri Pine, this on account of its fine texture and non-absorption of the butter, not liable 
to taint or discolour, and lightness of weight. 
In the same year the following statement was communicated to the Sydney 
Press:— 
LocaJly-macle Butter-boxes .—The increasing benefits that the Colony will receive from the rapid 
extension of the butter industry are daily becoming more apparent. Already the railways and steamship 
companies have turned the industry to profit, and increased employment has been given in consequence. 
It has now been proved, however, that yet another industry will be fostered which hitherto has been 
overlooked, and this is the extensive manufacture of butter-boxes from colonial timber. While travelling- 
on the Northern rivers, Mr. Pateson, manager of the Fresh Food and Ice Company, happened to notice the 
large quantities of timber there which was practically going to waste. Being struck with the suitability 
of some of the local woods for the manufacture of butter-boxes, he questioned Mr. James Darragh, who has 
sawmills on the Richmond, on the subject. His replies proved very satisfactory, and samples were asked 
for. The result has been that this morning the Fresh Food and Ice Company, in conjunction with the 
South Coast and West Camden Co-operative Company, have agreed to purchase 10,000 cases, and have 
given a promise that they will take 50,000 should the first quantity prove as satisfactory as anticipated. 
The boxes are said to be superior to the imported article, being at the same time considerably 
cheaper; while the boxes used this season cost about Is. 3d. each, the contract price which these companies 
have entered into is only Is. Several different varieties of wood have been submitted, among which are 
She-Beecli, Pine, and Sycamore. The whole of these three are very good, but the first-named is preferred. 
These boxes can be easily made to conform to the weight stipulated in the shipping companies’ proposed 
agreement recently published, it being estimated that they will average from 10 lb. to 12 lb. weight each. 
There is said to be an abundance of timber, so another important branch of the butter industry promises 
to spring up. 
There is an excellent article on the subject in the Agricultural Gazette for 
March, 1902, which I print in extenso. 
Fears, that are by no means groundless, have been expressed that, under the enormously increasing 
demands from all parts of Australasia, the supplies of New Zealand White Pine (Kahikihea), most generally 
used for butter-boxes, may be within a comparatively short period exhausted. This matter, to anyone 
unacquainted with the actual timber resources of our Northern River brushes, would appear to be of 
