489 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1897. 
to sea, the owners being powerless to preserve them. At this moment 
numbers of fine pine logs may be seen above high-water mark, lying piled up 
on the beach between Southport and the Tweed feads, carried there during 
floods. The writer, in 1863, cut 200.000 feet of hardwood on the Brisbane 
River, opposite Moggill Creek, and during a flood season some 500 or 600 
fine logs, lying drawn to the creek bank ready for removal by punt, were 
swept into the river and are possibly lying there to this day. An account still 
in his possession of the value of seventy-five of these logs shows that they 
contained 71,530 feet of timber, valued at the mill at 4s. per 100 feet. The 
largest of the trees felled contained 3,591 feet, the average being over 900 
feet per tree. They represented a fortnight’s hard work. 
Droughts have operated equally disastrously. Men have worked for two or 
three years with expensive appliances in cedar scrubs. Vast quantities of 
splendid logs have been hauled to dry creeks communicating with navigable 
rivers, in the expectation that the periodical floods would carry them to the spot 
where a raft could be constructed. The floods have not been heavy enough to 
perform this work, and hence the logs were left to rot on the creek banks.* 
But even allthis destruction has been as nothing compared with that caused 
by agricultural settlement and by indiscriminate licensing in the. ‘ good old 
days.” I will do most farmers the justice to say that they preserved as much 
as possible the heavy pine they found in the scrub land they had purchased. 
but the exigencies of their avocations demanded the clearing, burning off, and 
stumping of their land. Hence myriads of young pine-trees, beech, silky oak, 
and yellow-wood were unavoidably destroyed. I have myself for farming 
purposes been compelled to cut down scores of trees, which, had they been 
growing until now, would have formed grand food for the saw-mill. 
The losses accruing to the colony, however, by agricultural settlement are 
partially recouped by the substitution of one commercial product for another, 
and although it may fairly be argued that an acre of maize is not an equivalent 
for an acre of pine or cedar in a marketable condition, still, as it would require 
from twenty to thirty years—according to soil and situation—-to produce an 
acre of pine-trees 2 feet in diameter, it would not be for the benefit of the 
country that all farm produce should be imported, as this would mean sparse 
population and slow progress. A few timber-getters would very soon fell the 
couple of hundred pine-trees on an acre of land; and unless the laws on the 
subject were very stringent with regard to replanting, a sum of about £200 
would represent the whole gain in the time mentioned to a few men, whereas the 
same area would support a family of agriculturists year after year if it were 
devoted to agricultural pursuits. Thus, although the demands of agriculture 
undoubtedly contribute largely to the denudation of our forests and scrubs (as 
does the ringharking so extensively practised by the pastoral occupants of the 
country), the real question at issue becomes finally narrowed down to lumbering 
and lumber-mills. : 
In connection with ringbarking, it should be remarked that’ the 
operation has a decidedly .good effect upon the pasture by increasing the 
covering of grass and other herbage, and also by increasing the supply of water 
on arun. Springs have been known to break out after the trees have been 
“ringed,” where no spring was formerly suspected. If we consider that a well- 
grown gum or ironbark will absorb as much as a hogshead of water from the 
soil, if not more, in twenty-four hours, it may be conceived that the ringing of 
100 such trees on an acre must have a beneficial effect upon the subterranean 
water supply, whatever baneful influence it may exert on the pluvial supply. 
In my next paper | shall briefly consider the two above-mentioned factors of 
destruction, and afterwards discuss the most obvious remedies. / 
* A peculiarity in the rotting of a beech log was pointed out to me by Mr. W. Pettigrew, 
prophee gt of the Brisbane saw-mills. A large beech log had been sawn in two in the scrub at 
Mooloolah, and abandoned. The sawn ends were close together, and the timber had rotted inwards 
to a depth of six or seven inches, whilst the end exposed to sun and wind was quite sound. 
. 
