The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2630, 22 July 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1871.

Amongst the many difficult problems that Victoria is attempting to solve is. that of preventing tbo waste of its valuable timber which is rapidly disappearing, and to transmit a supply to future generations. In this, as in all other economical questions, years must elapse before public co-operation can be freely accorded to any steps that a government might feel it a duty to adopt. Our advances in civilisation are not yet so great ns to lead to ft conviction that side by side with the privilege of using earth’s products for present advantage, lies the duty of leaving our country improved by our occupation and fitted for the use of those who are to follow us. • This duty has not yet been fully recognised. Weare accustomed to look upon the functions of governments as merely moral, and to be limited to defining the relations of individuals with each other, to the raising and spending of taxes, and to the preservation of social order. Some enthusiasts would go further and claim for them dominion over mind ; but for our present purpose, with those, we have nothing to do. What we claim and insist upon as a Very important part of Governmental duty, is dominion over matter so far as seeing to it that the public estate is improved for the general good, and that wanton and improvident waste of it is checked. Over land that has passed into private hands, Government has no control. It is one of the privileges of the individual to use it so as to exhaust its productiveness and render it sterile. Perhaps not many years hence, when it is too late, it may be discovered that alienation of land from the Crown was not the wisest nor most equitable mode of dealing with it, and that a system under which waste and destruction might be avoided, efficient control for public utility retained, and taxes collected in the shape of rent, should have been adopted in lieu of it. There is, however, a vast area of land that might, with very little expense, be made exceedingly valuable by planting trees adapted to the soil and climate. We hardly know any country that would be more, benefitted by such a plan than Otago.- Any one travelling through the Province must be struck with the bare treeless aspect of the country. For scores of miles mountains and valleys may be traversed without a tree being visible. Occasionally a patch of green trees planted by some squatter or settler may relieve the monotony, and here and there a belt of forest may be seen. But where there is indigenous timber, there is waste, and as much haste is made to get rid of it by burning or any other means, as if the noble forest tree were a noxious weed. Dr Mueller, Government botanist of Victoria, in a lecture, has been drawing attention to this subject in Melbourne, for in Victoria they arc even more reckless of their timber than we arc here. lie pointed out how at different elevations variety of timber might be grown, the beneficial effect that the culture of trees would have upon the climate, and the w'ealth that might he added to the country. Our Acclimatisation Society has nob lost sight of this branch of its self-imposed duties, but as in all other cases, private scientific enter})rise is comparatively powerless for extended usefulness. It must be backed by public co-operation, and then it becomes a work for Government. The cost of one day’s deliberation in the Provincial Council would have sufficed to provide seed for planting scares of acres of forest—but this subject was really beyond the grasp of the.legislative mind of our honorarium-loving representatives. Wo should have ranch liked to have reprinted Dr Mueller’s lecture, but it is more than a daily paper can grapple with : we, however, commend the following extract from it to careful consideration, for though specially spoken for Victoria, much will apply to New Zealand also :

Let it ba well considered that it is not alone the injudicious overstocking of many a pasture, or the want of water storage, but frequently the very want of rain itself for years in extorsive woodless districts, which renders occupation of many of our inland tracts so precarious. Let it also not bo forgotten how, without a due proportion of woodland, no country can be great and prosperous. Remember how whole mountain districts of Southern Europe became, with the fall of the furcate, utterly depopulated—how the gushes of wide currents washed

away all arable soil, while the bordering flat land became buried in debris ; how its rivers became lilled with sediment, while the population of the low land also became involved in poverty and ruin. Let us recollect that in many places the remaining alpine inhabitant had to toil with his very fuel for many miles up to once-wooded hills, where barrenness and bleakness would, perhaps, no longer allow a tree to vegetate. It should be borne in mind that the productiveness of cereal holds is often increased at the rate of fully 50 per cent, merely by establishing plantations of shelter trees, that the progress of drift-sand is checked by tree plantations, and that a belt of timber not only aliords protection against storms, but also converts sandy .wastes finally into arable meadows, thus adding almost unobserved, yet unceasingly so far, to the resources of a country.