1 Dec., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 481 
the ground. To the ordinary eye this would appear a heavy loss, and so it 
undoubtedly would have proved, had there been a population a hundred years 
ago to utilise it. But these trees have either long ago arrived at maturity and 
commenced to decay (a necessary process of nature in the interests of the 
young timber), or else they have been attacked by termites and grubs, which 
perforate the wood, and thus render it useless for any other purpose than that 
of fuel. Much destruction may also be set down not only to the ravages of 
white ants but also to the effects of violent windstorms and lightning. 
These causes, then, can hardly be taken into consideration as wasteful. For 
this result, we must turn to bush fires and the hand of man. 
With regard to the first—7.e., bush fires—the operation of fire is scarcely 
so apparent in the comparatively densely peopled Southern coast districts as 
it is further 1o the northward and westward, where population is sparse and 
overstocking avoided. In some portions of the latter part of Queensland, the 
grass, during the rainy season, grows to an incredible height, often so high as 
almost to conceal a horse. In addition to this, climbing plants and annual 
shrubs grow thickly amongst the dense herbage. When the rains are over, 
and the dry winter season has fully set in, bush fires of enormous extent occur, 
either owing to the carelessness of travellers or to the wilful act of the 
aborigines, who fire the grass for the greater convenience of hunting or 
travelling. These fires are very destructive to the young timber, thousands of - 
young saplings falling victims to the flames or to the fall of the worn-out 
burning giants which sheltered their young growth. These bush fires are 
frequently followed by a dense growth of young black-wattle scrub, and the 
superabundant shade thus supplied has the effect of checking the germination 
of seeds which may fall from the larger trees. The loss by bush fires does not 
apply to the dense scrubs, which, owing to the moisture retained by the thick 
undergrowth, are practically fireproof. 
We now come to the waste caused by the progress of settlement. This we 
find to be the most serious, and most requiring instant and earnest attention. 
In the early days of settlement in Queensland, when agriculture received 
little or no attention, the dense scrubs in the South, on the banks of the 
Brisbane and its tributary creeks, the Logan, Albert, Pimpama,~ Coomera, 
Nerang, Pine, Caboolture, Maroochie, and in the North, the Burnett, Mary, 
the Barron, Johnson, Bloomfield, and others, besides other eastern rivers, were 
rich in supplies of magnificent hoop pine, cedar, beech, silky oak, yellow-wood, 
&c., whilst on their edges and in the forest were quantities of stately Hucalypts 
of many kinds. 
In time, splitters and timber-getters got to work and “ picked the eyes” 
out of the country. Then commenced the losses and waste. It is well known 
to the initiated that many trees, fair to the eye ata certain height from the 
ground, prove to have a “ wind” higher up. This wind, or twist, renders that 
pornen of the tree valueless to the splitter, whose business would not admit of 
is utilising it by cutting roads through the scrub to draw sound, but to him 
useless, logs to the river for transmission to the saw-mill. He, therefore, 
abandoned most, if not the whole of the tree, which in the course of nature 
decayed and was lost for ever, so far as timber was concerned. Often a tree 
would hang suspended by the vines overhead. (Iam, of course, alluding to 
timber-getting in scrubs.) ‘The splitter found it simpler to fell another tree 
out of the abundance around him than to lose time by cutting away the 
surrounding scrub, by which means alone he could secure the fall of the first. 
Again, trees were often lost by felling them on gusty days. The result was 
often what is technically known as a “kick-up.” ‘That is to say, before the 
saw had fairly cut into the “shoulders,” the wind seized the head of the tree, 
and, there being too much wood uncut by the saw, the tree split from the 
stump to a height of from 5 feet to 15 feet, then broke short off, when 
it either remained supported by the split stump or fell to the ground 
useless as a mill log. Floods again were a great cause of loss. Hundreds, 
if not thousands, of logs of both pine and cedar have been swept out 
