570 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Dec., 1901. 
) 
Forestry. 
FORESTRY IN SWEDEN. 
Sweden is a small country, having an area of 170,979 square miles and a 
population of 4,784,675 inhabitants. It has thus only about one-fourth of the 
area of Queensland, and over 4+ million more inhabitants. Yet compare the 
working of the forests of Sweden with that of any portion of Australia. It 
was in either in Norway or Sweden—the former, we believe—that the vast 
timber industry of to-day was initiated by one sawmill driven by a water-wheel 
and only one saw. From a late consular report we learn that scientific forestry 
has preved to be a most profitable business to the State. ‘There are in Sweden 
18,000,000 acres of public forests, of which 12,500,000 acres are under what igs 
termed scientific management. There is in Sweden a central forestry bureau, 
a forestry corps for work in the field, comprising nine inspectors, eighty-eight 
chiefs of range, having equal rank with captains in the regular army, besides 
many foresters and watchmen. The State forests average 166,250 acres in each 
range. ‘here is a college of forestry and six schools of forestry. For forestry 
management, administration, and instruction the State annually expends, 
according to the report of 1899, £96,780. The income to the State from forestry 
the same year was £420,222, the forests at the same time growing more 
valuable every year. 
DESTRUCTION OF TIMBER ON THE DAINTREE. 
Mr. Pentzcke, whose notes on Sisal hemp we give in another part of this 
Journal, mentions that there is very serious destruction going on on the river of 
timbers which would be most valuable for veneers if cut to suitable sizes and 
exported to the continent of Europe. Timber for veneers is there sold by the 
pound weight, and from fourteen to sixteen veneers are cut from 1 inch. West 
Indian mahogany is sold in the London market at from 4d. to 1s. 6d. per 
superficial foot of planking 1 inch thick. Messrs. Broadwood, the piano- 
makers, some years ago gave £3,000 for three magnificent logs of Spanish 
mahogany. Tach log measured 15 feet in length and squared 38 inches. ‘The 
wood was of most exquisite beauty. We have timbers in Queensland which for 
beauty of grain and durability rival any timbers of any other country, but we 
simply cut them down and burn them. 
‘There is a species of palm—the black palm—growing on the Daintree, 
which the blacks Aes as soon as the trees are mature, presumably for the 
sake of the delicate centre of the head. On the continent this timber is sold ag 
“black ivory.” Out of it columns are made 20 feet in height and 9 inches in 
diameter. If required to carry a heavy ceiling, they are bored as alder-trees 
are bored for water pipes. An iron bar is then passed through the centre of 
the column, which is then beautifully polished, and a number of such columns 
are used for supporting handsome ceilings in great halls and saloons. Numbers 
of these arate palms are destroyed for walking-sticks, and Mr. Pentzcke 
throws out the suggestion that everyone carrying a black-palm walking-stick 
should be made to pay a license. The stump of this palm cuts marvellously 
beautiful veneers. 
The destruction of native birds, such as the cassowary, is a distinct menace 
to the existence of such timbers, as the birds swallow the nuts, seeds, &c., 
and stone fruits to a very large extent and deposit them all over the scrubs 
and forests, where they grow and flourish, covering even bare ridges in time 
with dense scrubs. Without the cassowary, the black palm would have dis- 
appeared long ago, mainly owing to destruction by blacks and white vandals. 
The birds atte such as the scrub turkey and scrub hen, are the most 
formidable and voracious hunters after snails and various insect pests in the 
North. If these birds are ruthlessly destroyed, the insect pests will increase 
in the scrubs—their present habitat—and will naturally spread to the planta- 
tions. As the scrub Hen lays only one egg a week—many often laying in the 
same nest—it follows that the extinction of the bird will only be a matter of a 
short time. 
