Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/61

Rh five pounds to gain twenty," said one of the shrewdest and best-informed officials of Victoria.

By the common process of ringbarking, dead trees are left standing over great areas of forest land, vast white skeleton armies, a strange and desolate sight. If the land is to be used for arable purposes, the trees have to be removed; but for pasture, when the trees are dead, and can no longer deprive the grass of nourishment and moisture, they remain standing for years, till in time with the process of the seasons, and the attacks of insects, the hard wood decays and crumbles away. Thus the destruction of forests goes on in order to provide timber for building; for fencing, mining, fuel, as well as for commercial purposes of export, or to improve, or create, arable or pasture land. In Western Australia besides, green timber is cut for fuel, in the neighbourhood of the goldfields, because of the scarcity of coal, but natural reafforestation is usually allowed to proceed. However, when all these necessities are admitted, there has been a deplorable waste of timber, the want of which is already felt in settled districts; and it is hoped that further wanton destruction will be prevented, and replanting will be undertaken by all the states. Official opinion is becoming alive to the importance of the question to the future history