1 Sepr., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 333 
washdown of mould from the mountains, or of surface-washings from the 
pastured, ploughed, or cultivated fields. 
; In Queensland, as in Ireland and Scotland, from lack of tree-growth, in 
many districts, we suffer in measure precisely as they suffer in the imperfectly 
forested parts of Africa. 
Dr. Japp, continuing, says :— 
“ Now, what must we infer from all this, the condition in which our country 
stands from its neglect, dire and sad, of afforestation? In the first place, it is 
allowing wealth—more precious than the golden grains rolled down by African 
rivers—to be washed away ; for here it is the very soil, the land itself and its 
fruitful possibilities, that, with every rain and flood, is being swept out to sea. 
Secondly, the country is yearly paying away many millions for what it could 
itself produce under a thorough and scientific system of reafforestation. 
Other countries act more wisely if they do not know better than we do. No 
portion of the country must be waste: if a man cuts down trees, he is com- 
pelled by law to replant, if he does not plough or make pasturage there. If he 
won’t do this within a certain period, the Government in due time will resume 
possession, and itself, by its Forest Department, replant that area with suitable 
tree-growth. Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have this law. 
The result is that we are now dependent on them for timber, as we are depen- 
dent on Russia and America not only for grain, but, to a large extent, for our 
butcher-meat. To us it does appear as though the situation were ominous. 
We have the reform absolutely in our own hands. But our ‘statesmen’ are 
so much engaged with other things—with Party manceuvres, with this, that, 
and the other—that they have no thought for this and such as this. Circum- 
stances might easily arise to cut us off for long periods from our present sources 
of supply. Nay, these very sources of supply, at least at several points, are 
sure, in course of time, to lessen, from the swift populating of new countries. 
We are insular—that has its advantages; but, alas! it may also have its tragic 
disadvantages. Ordinary discretion, since we are geographically insulated, 
might lead us to aim at being as nearly as possible self-contained and self- 
sustained. This, with no suggestion of any reserve or dislike to those on whom 
we are dependent, but solely on the ground of the true interests of our own 
people. 
“Tf we produced more, if land were more fruitful, well and skilfully 
cultivated, and were more widely used in some form or other, then it is clear 
that, with every increased quarter of wheat raised, every additional ton of corn 
and rye grown, every additional acre of barley reaped, we were extending our 
own home-markets on which in all circumstances we could depend, and making 
ourselves independent of distant markets on which owing, among other things, 
to keen competition, destined to be yet keener and keener, as the good Bishop 
of Manchester the other day so significantly warned us, we can less and less 
securely depend. Much has been changed, much more yet will be changed by 
the tremendous fact that we are no longer the one only coal and iron producing 
and steel-working country in the world. No; even there, others, by applica- 
tions of chemical and scientific knowledge—Germany and America are 
outstripping us—have so improved their machinery and their processes that they 
can beat us both as to quality and time needed; and more, can undersell us. 
Surely, in such case, wise men would think of husbanding resources, of laying 
by or laying up for a rainy day. Yes; laying by and laying up for a rainy day, 
even by so covering the waste and wasteful places of our land with miracle- 
working trees. or the tree by its roots seizes water and transpires by its 
leaves the excess, thus preventing torrential floods—one oak thus lifts in a 
season of leafage nigh 150 tons of water. No corner, not even the rock itself, 
as Dr. Cooper anew points out, but they could be grown on; no bog, swamp, 
or morass but could be made to yield. Even an Irish bog set out with alders, 
willows, sallows, and other water-loving trees, birches and firs on the higherand 
drier reaches, what a double source of wealth were that for one and all of us !” 
