496 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL, [1 Nov., 1899. 
For this purpose timber leases might be granted for a single year, or for a 
term of years, and no timber lease should exceed in area 10,000 acres. Such 
i 
timber leases should include the right to cut, remove, and sell any kind of timber, 
ased area, subject to 
or any scaffold poles, piles, &e., &e., erowing on the le 
certain conditions to be laid down by the Minister. The rental for any such 
timber lease should be paid in advance. 
Where agricultural settlement has ta 
Minister's discretion to grant permits to bond fide farmers to cut such timber 
as they may require for fencing and building purposes, free of cost. The lessee 
of any timber lease should be required to protect all young seedlings and 
saplings of useful timber trees, but not to the extent of insisting on his 
employing labour for this purpose. 
' There will arise cases in which it will be necessary for the lessee of a 
timber selection to build tramways to connect his field of operations either with 
a sawmill or a railway, and further, such initiatory field of work may be 
subsequently abandoned. In such case the Minister may grant to the lessee of 
the abandoned lease permission to retain the use of his tramway provided it 
be connected with another leased area. 
It is obvious that under present conditions a leased area of 10,000 acres 
will not all be productive during the currency of the lease. Under such 
circumstances a lessee may be empowered to surr 
as may have been denuded, or he may retain the said portion at a reduced 
rental, until during the term of the lease (which may extend to 25 years) 
it has again become productive, but at a reduced rental. 
ken place, it should lie within the 
‘All timber felled and not removed within a certain period after the _ 
termination of the lease shall become unconditionally the property of the 
Crown, unless the Minister shall see reason to extend the period for removal. 
Any person removing timber or bark from a timber area without a license 
shall be liable to a fine of £100. 
Under the present Regulations the standard sizes at which various trees 
may be cut are— 
Minimum Circumference at 6 ft, from the Ground. 
Ft, in. 
Red Cedar ay Hp ats Bat fe Pil te O, 
6 O 
Kauri Pine is at vt sie ite the 
Hoop Pine wh ey a “a0 0 sok, DIRS. : 
The size at which Hoop Pine may be cut is manifestly unfair, as there are 
quantities of this timber in the West Moreton district rarely exceeding 18 
inches in diameter, or about 5 feet in circumference. ‘The timber is well 
grown and eminently suited for the mill, and if much of it were cut there 
would thus be room for the young seedlings and saplings to shoot up and 
provide future supplies. 
The Bunya Pine is absolutely protected. A. glance at my “ Forest Con- 
servancy,” Part IT., page 3, will show the rate at which the trees abovenamed 
increase in diameter after topping the scrub. 
With reference to the stripping of bark, cutting piles, scaffold poles, and 
dead timber, standing or fallen, such matters could, I think, well be left to the 
discretion of the conservator or inspector of forests, subject to the Minister's 
approval of his recommendations. 
One thing in connection with the cutting of piles should be seriously con- 
sidered. Piles and stumps for house building are always selected from the 
very best timber suitable for such purposes. Swamp mahogany for the former 
and ironbark, gum, and peppermint for the latter, are trees of slow growth. I 
not cut for these purposes, they would in time form trees of great value, and I 
therefore think that the same price per 100 feet or the same royalty should be 
charged for these as for the mature trees. T would even apply the principle to 
the sale of scaffold poles. This is, I think, the system wteytedl in Western 
Australia, and for much the same reason. as J have advanced-viz., the 
deterioration to a forest being as great by the cutting of a sapling as by the 
cutting of a, pile. df 
ender such portion of the lease . 
