1 Aprin, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AUHICULTURAL JOURNAL. 309° 
Now take the case of bananas, which produce more food matter than any 
known product of the soil, acre for acre. It isestimated that 100 acres of good 
land established in bananas will yield during the second and subsequent years 
after planting about 1,000 bunches per week. Hach bunch will contain, according 
to the variety, from seven to ten hands—a hand consisting of from ten to 
seventeen bananas; each bunch would thus be worth about from 9d. to 1s. 2d., 
bringing the yield of an acre up to over 9s. per week, or over £23 per acre per 
annum. Jamaica bananas sell in the London market at from 12s. to 15s. 6d. 
per bunch, whilst at Giasgow some were sold as high as 14s. to 16s. per bunch. 
We have now compared three crops—rubber, citrus fruits, and bananas. 
The first requires no cultivation ; the second stands in need of constant care and 
attention, involving considerable expense from the very outset. The third can 
pretty well look after itself, once the stools are established. : 
What I more particularly want to point out is the pressing need for caring 
for the perpetuation of forest and scrub trees, hard and soft. 
In all our yet standing serubs, the timbergetter is busy removing the various 
commercial timbers peculiar to the scrubs, amongst which the principal are 
kauri pine, hoop pine, cedar, beech, crows’ ash, and silky oak. When these” 
are gone, then, according to popular opinion, nothingis left of any commercial 
value, and the scrub is only fit to be cut down and burnt off. But there 
are still many timber trees in the coast scrubs especially which will yet be of 
great commercial value for the purpose of furniture-making, veneering, &c. 
Such are the yellow-woods, rosewood, tulip-wood, brigalow, satin-wood, and 
many others, ali of which are capable of taking a high polish, and of making 
excellent veneers, and these should be preserved as much as those in more 
immediate demand. 
This does not imply that no scrub should be cleared, or that the more 
valuable timbers should not be brought to market. Timber we must have, and 
forests were intended by Providence to be cut down for the use of man, and 
for other purposes besides, such as attracting rain, preserving the land from 
being dried up by exposure to the scorching rays of the sun, and protecting 
the soil from being washed down into the watercourses. But what is 
required is the protection and nursing of the young trees which, in the 
ordinary course of nature, would eventually take the place of those removed. 
Planting young trees is not so much a necessity as the nurture of those 
growing naturally. To this end all that is needed is for the timber on our 
lands already reserved by the Government for forest areas, to be carefully 
tended. “ 
In France the work of restoring the forest is being systematically carried 
on, and in mountainons country, ages since denudéd of timber, the course oz 
torrents is stopped or deflected by means of stonework and fascines made of 
live willow. ‘These faseines readily strike root, and form a barrier behind 
which the débris from the high lands accumulate, and so by degrees the 
wasting of the surface is arrested and forest planting begins. It must be borne 
in mind that the re-afforestation of a denuded hillside, cut into deep chasms by 
the descending torrents, extends its influence to the plains below, often for 
hundreds of miles. 
The silt washed down from the bare hills is carried on to the low lands, 
and instances can be multiplied in every country of the world, where civilised 
tan has planted his foot, of tens of thousands of acres of vich alluvial plains 
eing overwhelmed with barren gravel, sour mud, and other silt. Witness the 
ruin of many farms in Southern Queensland after the great flood of 1893. 
Not only were many acres completely washed away, but entire farms were for 
miles covered with a sour deposit several inches thick, which rendered the land 
utterly unfertile, and caused the owners to abandon them in despair, 
In Germany the forests are so skilfully managed that 11,000,000 aeres of 
State forests produce an annual income of £4,000,000, And this result is 
arrived at, not so much by planting as by dntelligent work in regenerating the 
forests. ‘The German forester works on opposite lines to those of the lumberer. 
