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1 Juxx, 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL, 509 
prevails, there the foliage of the eucalyptus has a deterrent effect, the 
exhalations from these checking the march of malarious vapours. 
M. Gimbert, of the French Academy of Science, lecturing before that 
body, says of the Hucalyptus globulus:—It has the extraordinary power of 
absorbing ten times its weight of water; planted in marshy soil, it dries it in a 
very short time, and simultaneously emits an antiseptic camphorous effluyia, 
growing up with astonishing rapidity and attaining gigantic dimensions. At 
Constantine a large farm was wet and marshy at all seasons of the year. 
Fourteen thousand eucalyptus trees were planted there, and in five years the 
land was quite dried and the air perfectly wholesome. A large marsh about a 
mile off was, by planting eucalyptus, converted into a fine healthy park of 
12 acres. In Cuba the tree is regarded as a great boon to that country, where 
fevers were long prevalent and marsh fevers decimated whole villages and 
towns. Since the eucalyptus has been planted there all fever has disappeared, 
and the country has been rendered habitable and healthy. In the Department 
of Vau, a house near the railway was so unhealthy that the officials could not 
live init. Forty trees were planted in a garden in the vicinity, and ere long 
the evil was obviated and the house occupied. 
I mention these remarkable effects to show the value of one of our most 
common native trees—one destroyed daily instead of being conserved. 
In various countries, the ill effects of too extensive cutting of forest timber 
has been clearly shown. In Upper Egypt, eighty years ago, rain was abundant; 
but after the destruction of its timber by the Arabs in Lybia and Arabia, rain 
totally ceased for nine years. As a contrast to this, in Lower Egypt, where 
rain was almost unknown, extensive tree planting by the Pasha was followed by 
copious and frequent rainfalls. At the Cape de Verde Islands, on the forests 
being destroyed, no rain fell from 1830 to 1835, and 30,000 of the inhabitants 
perished from severe drought. 
In 1848, M. Carron, a botanist of no mean eminence, visited Queensland, 
under instructions from the New South Wales Government (this colony then 
being part of their territory), to select suitable spots on the Northern rivers for 
reserves. Having accomplished his mission, he returned to Sydney, but a few 
years afterwards he revisited the spot on which the reserves had been proclaimed. 
He there found that no steps had been taken by the new Queensland Govern- 
ment to protect their interests, and that few of the best trees were left standing. 
Indiscriminate slaughter of timber had taken place by bushmen and others who 
selected what timber they chose, and wherever it was more easily procured. 
He also reported that one person had built a stable, but, instead of taking a few 
large trees and splitting slabs, had formed it of saplings, using about 100 
of these for the purpose, whilst to roof it in he took one sheet of bark 
from an equal number of other full-grown trees, leaving them to die with 
five-sixths of their bark on them, within sight of a main road ina growing district 
phere good timber will eventually be required for bridges and other heavy 
~work. 
So glaring did this waste of timber by the early settlers become that our 
first Parliament passed an enactment to try to check the evil, which, however, 
still continues. Rangers of large experience should have control over the 
the forest reserves, which should be regarded as nurseries, from which other 
newer-formed reserves could be supplied. In each of the colonies attempts are 
still made to check the waste of valuable timber, and in New South Wales, all 
too late to prevent the denuding of large tracts of country by ringbarking. A 
more unsightly aspect was never presented in any country in the world than 
that which greets the eye of the traveller by the overland railway line from 
Melbourne to Sydney and thence northward to Wallangarra on the Queensland 
border In Victoria, at the time when gold-mining was in the ascendant, the 
value of timber used for mining purposes was £480,000, and since 1852 the 
exports of timber to Victoria for building purposes totalled a value of 
£10,000,000. These figures, if considered, will do more to convince those 
sceptical on these facts than tons of argument, however ably expressed. 
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