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peeial Uses of Australian Timbers. —This is a field in regard to which practical men may benefit 
themselves and the community at the same time. Many of our native woods have been recommended for 
specific uses. Can those recommendations be endorsed 1 The great majority of our native timbers have 
been put to no other use than as fuel. It is in the highest degree improbable that our timbers, so varied 
in texture, colour, and properties, are unsuitable for many purposes. If not, what are those special 
purposes ? The uses of wood are infinite; and this inquiry, while not of a high scientific character, is 
certainly work of great importance. 
A Plea for a Botanical Survey. —The desirability of a botanical survey for the Colony is so 
obvious that I require only to touch upon a few points which suggest themselves, because of our special 
circumstances and environments. In the first place, we are frequently asked where this or that plant, or 
a supply of its product, may be obtained in quantity, and sometimes we can only indicate the locality in 
general terms. The establishment of a botanical survey need not involve the expenditure of a large sum 
of money, but rather the organisation and control of existing agencies which may subserve the grand 
object in view. I feel sure that in country districts there are hundreds—nay, even thousands—of private 
citizens, and officials such as engineers, surveyors, mining, land and forest officers, school-teachers, post¬ 
masters, and many others, who would give voluntary aid to the furtherance of a botanical survey. Many 
would, in their spare moments, gladly supply information and collect specimens, if they knew what would 
be acceptable. But while the work must be largely voluntary, it need be none the less systematic. I have 
conducted an informal botanical survey on my own account for many years, but my correspondents, 
although many, do not represent the whole of the Colony, and their work has been necessarily of a fitful 
.and unorganised character. 
In time to come, we shall not only have geological and mining surveyors, but also agricultural and 
forestry surveyors. I use the word "surveyor” (as regards agriculture, forestry, &c.), not so much in the 
sense it bears as applied to a land-surveyor, for a man may be able to furnish valuable information suitable 
for a botanical and agricultural survey, and yet be incapable of using a theodolite. To summarise, I would 
use the term “ botanical survey ” as correlative to geological survey, and it would include observations 
applicable to (a) Pure Botany, ( b) Agriculture, (c) Forestry, ( d) Horticulture. 
Then follow some notes particularly applicable to Forestry. 
Forestry. —We have much to learn in regard to the geographical distribution of even our principal 
forest trees ; much more, then, is there scope for inquiry in regard to the distribution of those of less 
frequent occurrence. The matter is of importance from a utilitarian point of view, because of the fact 
that, be a timber ever so desirable, it cannot be utilised commercially unless a continuous supply be avail¬ 
able, and to obtain supplies we must know the localities of its occurrence not merely in general terms. 
The value of a botanical survey would be most immediately felt in regard to our forests. We could by 
the aid of it take stock, as it were, of our possessions, of our standing timber, and prepare a scheme for 
scientific conservation. A general statement to an outsider as to the vastness of our timber supplies is at 
once met by the plain questions,—Where are each of your timber-trees found? of what size are they? and 
in what abundance ? 
Measurements of Trees. —One of the matters to which attention would be given by a botanical 
survey would be that of ascertaining the heights and trunk-diameters of various kinds of trees, different 
observations being made in regard to the same species in different districts. In this way a ready index 
would be obtained as to the climates and soils in which various species flourish best. Notes would also 
be taken of the sizes of abnormally large trees. These are, of course, becoming rapidly fewer ever since 
the advent of the white man. If the identity of individual trees be noted, either by marks on or near 
the trees themselves in the forest, or on the maps, it would be easy to prepare records of the rates of 
growth of our Australian trees—a matter of considerable economic importance and of some scientific 
interest, but in regard to which we possess very few data at present. 
Rate of Growth of Forest Trees. —This is a forestry matter which might well engage the attention 
of a botanical survey. We have a few scattered notes on the growth of indigenous trees,* but no inquiry 
of this nature, on a large scale, has, to my knowledge, been yet attempted. The ascertainment of the 
rate of growth of exotic trees in various districts is also of great practical importance, and the data are 
often more readily available than is the case with indigenous trees, as, since as a rule they have been 
planted by man, approximate dates of planting are often ascertainable. 
For example, Ayric. Gazette F. S. IF, vii, 504 (August, 1896). 
