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1 Dec., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. ei) 
and as a natural consequence the land has become in many cases unfit for 
agricultural or pastoral occupation. The covering of timber preserved the soil 
from being baked by the sun as well as‘from being frozen by the icy blasts of 
winter. The falling leaves and rotting trunks formed a rich humus for the 
growth of succulent grasses and herbs, whilst the roots of the trees, assisted by 
those of the herbage, held the soil together, and the heaviest rains and floods 
were powerless to carry away the fertile parts of it, and thus there was always 
a continual supply of grass on the forest lands for the fattening of stock, and 
whatever was required for cultivation purposes was nourished as stated by the 
fallen leaves of many centuries, and the crops were sheltered from windstorms 
by the surrounding forest. : 
Now see what man has accomplished by his ruthless destruction of the 
forests. He has laid bare the slopes of the hills where previously the fertility 
was regulated by the gentle flow of the rain water as it found its way towards 
the level country. There is nothing now to impede the rush of water descending 
in torrents from the mountains. The surface soil is disintegrated and carried 
down on to the low fertile lands, often covering them up with a mass of sand, 
shale, and other rocks, and thus rendering them, in their turn, useless for 
cultivation; and the result of this destruction of forests has been that where 
formerly we saw smiling fields and luxurious crops there now only remains a 
barren wilderness of rock and sand, with a scanty covering of almost useless 
grass and herbs. The cleared scrubs on the hillsides gradually lose their upper 
stratum of humus, and the crops becoming scantier year by year, indicate the 
mischief which has been done. : 
Now men are beginning to awaken to the necessity of reproducing these 
lost forests artificially and of conserving those still remaining by legislative 
enaction. In Queensland we are still in the destructive stage, although. much 
is being done by the Government to protect and replace the valuable timber 
trees of our scrubs. Here and there attempts have been made by private 
individuals to preserve and replant some of the indigenous scrub timbers. In 
1879 I planted about 1,500 young red cedar-trees in the mountain scrub at 
Forest Hill, near Laidley. They were planted in the serub without any 
clearing, and some few were planted in the open on the cleared ground. In 
the course of a year or two those in the scrub had all died, whilst those in the 
open throve well. ‘ 
But for one tree planted there are 10,000 destroyed by axe and fire, and 
this senseless destruction will continue to go on until more attention is paid 
to the warnings and instructions issued unceasingly by the Department of 
Agriculture. The reports on Forest Conservancy by Messrs. P. McLean (Under 
Secretary for Agriculture), P. MacMahon (Curator of the Brisbane Botanic 
Gardens), A. McDowall (Surveyor-General), and other experts 1n 1890 are 
deserving of all consideration, dealing, as they do, with the whole subject. 
Mr. McDowall says :—‘ It can hardly be questioned that the time is approach- 
ing when the wholesale destructions of timber in many parts of the colony— 
much of it of a wantonly wasteful nature—will be severely felt. Suddenly, 
- when the depredations of a careless population have produced the inevitable 
result, the subject of forest conservancy will assume a prominence not yet 
accorded to it, and it will be a matter of general wonder that our short-sighted- 
ness did notallow us to realise that destruction without replenishment must 
lead to scaréity.” Forests were made for the use of man, and, if properly 
managed, a perpetual supply of timber for all purposes can be maintained. This 
has been practically demonstrated by a firm of saw-mill proprietors who held 
large timber selections in the Noosa district at Lake Cootharaba. These far- 
seeing men kept up a regular supply of kauri and hoop pine by judicious 
systematic thinning. The scrubs on.their properties contained great quantities 
of these valuable soft woods, and to ensure constant supplies the land was 
divided into large blocks, of which one was culled of all pine timber of a certain 
diameter. When this first block was worked out, the next'was taken, then the 
others in rotation, until at the end of five or six years a large quantity of the 
