Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/74

 bad as the first; and as these trees burn for days together, it is nearly impossible to guard against this.

When the fire is burning through a forest, the effect is exceedingly grand. The green shrubs and young trees become enveloped in dense masses of mixed smoke and flame, while the fire sings and crackles merrily, as if rejoicing in the work of destruction. On one side, far as the eye can reach, the blackened earth and smouldering stumps bear witness to its ravages; while, on the other, the green forest waves in all the freshness of luxuriant vegetation; between the living and the dead creeps the long line of fire, like some insidious pestilence spreading its ravages amongst the vigorous and beautiful; over all hangs the lurid atmosphere surcharged with smoke and vapour, through which struggle the rays of a nearly vertical sun, but shining sickly and unnatural. The continued rushing sound of the fire, and the sighing of the hot wind, sounds monotonously on the ear, or interrupted only by an occasional crash, as from time to time some mighty tree succumbs to its fate, and the forest trembles at the fall of its verdant patriarchs.

It is a moot point amongst the settlers whether burning the country is of service or not, and I believe the result of experience is, that where land is fully stocked a better sod will be formed by having the grass eaten down than by burning it, but that where the grass becomes long and rank, it is of no use until burnt down as no animal will eat it, and practically it is only in such places that it is resorted to as a means of improving the herbage. Lord John Russell, when secretary for the