488 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jonz, 1899. 
The introduction and planting in forests or plantations of valuable 
timber trees of other lands which will thrive in this colony. 
That laws be promulgated setting out the sizes over which certain timber 
trees now becoming scarce should only be cut, and that such laws be 
strictly carried out. 
To these others could be added. 
The wanton destruction of our valuable native timbers, in many instances 
the wholesale and unnecessary wiping out of certain species in certain districts, 
is a grievous shame and disgrace to each individual Queenslander as well as to 
the colony. Not only is it a useless, but a wicked, waste to denude this fair 
land of ours of the trees which are (though looked upon by most perme as 
useless encumbrances) placed here by a greater and far-seeing Power than is 
given to such poor mortals as we are to understand. ‘Trees are living things, 
working for the good of the common weal, and if we recklessly destroy them 
we lessen the sum of national life, and therefore the amount of national 
power. 
It is easy to make a place treeless, but, oh! so hard and difficult to 
reclothe it. Let us then as a people be not so wasteful with our forest wealth: 
it will not last for ever. It was here when we came as interlopers into this 
country, and we have had, and are having, the use of it. But it will have an 
end. Our children and their children require it, and how can we hand it on 
like a legacy if we do not plant and strive to keep up the supply equal to the 
demand. Forests do not grow in a year, but trees, once they start, grow till 
they die. The great question now is: “ Will the supply of timber here at the 
present last until a new supply (planted now) is ready to take its place?” I 
THINK NoT. I trust that our legislators will look at once to the formation of a 
Forestry Board and the establishment of forest conservancy, and let each one 
who has land not forget the old, Scotch motto—“ Be ye aye sticking in a tree, 
Jock ; it'll aye be growing when ye’re sleeping.” 
A LESSON FROM AMERICA. 
WE have often been told by people who have read our many articles on forest 
conservancy, that Queensland can always get an abundant supply of timber 
from the United States. We know that as they do not keep themselves posted 
up in American literature on the subject, we fail to convince them that the pine 
forests of the United States and of British Columbia are so far from being 
inexhaustible that the question of a timber supply for home consumption is 
seriously engaging the attention of the two Governments. We give here a 
paragraph taken from the London Standard on the demolition of the forests 
of the North Eastern or New England States of North America. The 
“Down Easters” are awakening to the fact that their timber supplies aro 
growing short, that the rainfall is decreasing, their lakes drying up, and the 
agricultural interests seriously imperilled :— 
“A strong effort is being made in the United States to arrest the demolition 
of the forests of the country, which has been proceeding at an alarming pace 
for a great number of years. According to a statement issued by the American 
Newspaper Publishers’ Association, the denudation of forest and in the four 
States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York is rogressing at 
the rate of 1,700 square miles per annum. If this goes on without check, it . 
will not be many years before the timber supplies of the country will grow short, 
and this is only one point for consideration. In consequence of denuding the 
country of trees, itis said the level of important rivers and lakes has been 
steadily declining, and some of the North Western lakes have been dried up. 
Another result is a decrease in the rainfall, seriously injurious to the agricultural 
interest. Canada, it is pointed out, has a yast area of forest land, and would 
supply the United States liberally with timber if a mistaken tenderness for the 
‘interests of American lumbermen had not led to the imposition of a heavy duty 
upon Canadian lumber.” 
a a en ccc ea SES a i a ee 
