66 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jaw., 1899. 
Forestry. 
Tue following remarks offered by Mr. A. Molineux, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., General 
Secretary of the South Australian Agricultural Bureau, on the subject of 
reafforestation of the treeless portions of the colony, are well worth earnest 
consideration. As a people, we in Queensland are busy preparing a bad time 
for our posterity. During the first half of 1898 we published a series of 
articles on Forestry, and dwelt forcibly on some of the points brought out by 
Mr. Molineux. Here, timber is becoming scarcer, and the process of 
destruction is more rapid—the more people settle on the land. No sooner does 
a man take up a selection than he proceeds to cut down, grub out, or ring. 
bark every tree on the place. He wants to cultivate, he wants grass for his 
stock, he wants firewood, and the trees must go; there is no help for it. 
Neither he nor his neighbours who play the same little game ever pause to 
think of the value of trees apart from a sawmill or cooking point of view. We 
recommend .such to read carefuily the following article—to inwardly digest it 
and become wise in time. 
The time must come when the State will take our forests in hand and stay 
the universal destruction, but will it be too late when that time has arrived ? 
We still have scrubs crowded with pine, cedar, beech, crows’ ash, silky oak, &c. 
We have quantities of swamp mahogany and of valuable Eucalypts in our 
forests, but the insatiable demands of sawmills, railways, fences, wharves, &c., 
are ever increasing, and the result must be disastrous. With a Forestry 
Department, this demand could be satisfied without impairing the productiveness 
of the forests. The Department of Agriculture has shown in a practical 
manner what can be done in the matter of forest conservancy, and we should 
like to see the good work expand until it embraces the whole of the wooded 
areas of Queensland. 
THE INFLUENCE OF FORESTS. 
South Australia, considering its area, has less wooded land than any 
dependency under British rule. If all the scrub land and timbered country 
were divided amsngst the population, there would probably not bea quarter- 
acre for each soul. What would be the result if our population were increased 
to two or three million? Already in parts of the North they have to cart 
firewood from thirty to thirty-five miles. Fences are getting old, railway | 
sleepers are decaying, telegraph poles need renewal, bridges do not last for 
ever. Miners require much timber; furniture, machinery, implements of many 
sorts, ships, boats, wagons, carts, and very many articles need to be made of 
wood, and we ought to grow timber for all of these purposes instead of sending 
to distant countries. for supplies from their rapidly decreasing forest areas. 
Apart altogether from utilitarian uses, trees are necessary as breakwinds 
in many localities. They beautify the landscape, and exercise a most decidedly 
beneficial effect upon the atmospheric and climatic conditions where they exist 
in any considerable number. ‘The leaves absorb carbonic acid gas which is 
injurious to animal life, and give forth oxygen which is highly beneficial to 
animal existence. Living vegetation tends to equalise temperature—to raise 
it when cold and to reduce it when hot. It is a fact that living vegetation 
maintains a normal temperature, just as animals do. The normal temperature 
of man is 98 degrees F., and if this rises to 104 degrees F. he is in a fever, 
and will die if it rises two or three degrees higher. On the other hand, if the 
temperature falls a few degrees below 98 degrees I’. he will become torpid, and 
will die if his temperature cannot be elevated. Heat is conserved in the animal 
by a closing up of the pores, and heat is reduced by opening of the pores, profuse 
perspiration, and a,refrigerative action is set up by the rapid absorption of the 
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