Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/366

342 remove are quite likely found on soil that refuses to produce grass when the land has been cleared, or if it produces grass or grain at all it is not enough to pay the cost of clearing. It is in this particular that so many of the earlier settlers ruined themselves, by expending time and money in clearing up ground that afterwards proved worthless."

In the course of the conversation that followed, the gentleman spoke frequently of "scrub" and "forest" land, as though they were distinct from each other. Fred politely asked what was the difference between them.

"Scrub land," replied the gentleman, "is distinct from forest land in several features, but particularly in that of undergrowth. Scrub in Queensland means the low land on the banks of the rivers; it is covered with a dense growth of trees intermingled with a denser growth of vines and creepers, which in many places render it impossible to proceed without cutting one's way through with a tomahawk or large knife. The vines run to the tops of the highest trees, and frequently cross from tree to tree, so that the whole area seems bound together with festoons of green cordage.