COMMERCIAL NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1922, Page 3

COMMERCIAL NEWS .

PLANT LIFE IN AUSTRALIA. (By J. L. lclriess, in the Sydney “Btilletin.”) There is a great field of research for the chemist in the myriad forms of plant life in Australia. For every one now turned to commercial use a thousand are flourishing unknown in the native bush. Many perhaps arc ns valuable as the little-known sandalwood; and it took the Chinese, of all people, to teach us the value of that-. As far as 'Australia is concerned this stunted evergreen grows in Cape York Peninsula, in part of tho Gulf country and in scattered districts of Westralia. I‘rom tiny far northern ports tens of thousands of pounds’ worth is shipped to China every year. There it is turned to many uses—most important to the Chinese, into joss-sticks and incense burners. The wood is already very scarce, and a Chinaman in the trade recently told me that they will have to look presently to tiie leaves. t SANDALWOOD A CHINESE MONOPOLY;

Well known to western peoples is the sandalwood oil; and the poorer wood tho Chinese turn into good coin by calving it into knick-knacks, for which the rest of the world pays fancy prices. The big money part of the stick Is all in the Chinese' hands. The only cut the Australian gets goes to the bush men who piish out into the wild country with their pack teams, round up a tribe of niggers,- and make the host terms they can with them. to carry in a. load of wood to the main camp. The getter, then packs it into the nearest “port. Around Cooktown it goes straight on the steamer. Higher up the Peninsula the mosquito fleet sail it across to the Chinese buyers on Thursday Island, who give what they must—anywhere between £l2 and £6O per ton. At this moment, £3O. TTic market is ligK® in the most barefaced manner. Is this not worth the attention of the moneyed men of the South? China must have the wood. There must be great money in it. And the sandalwood getters would rush the man who would give them a square deal. Why not cut out the Chinese altogether On the big scrub-clad ranges north of -Garins there flourish hundreds of varieties of trees, their interlocked branches thrust desperately towards the sun in the grim struggle for existence. Apart altogether from their sawmill value, many possess unique properties. Every scrub prospector knows the keio-sene-wood tree. Cut it dow n in a tropic downpour, split it, put a inatc.i to the yellow wood, and there is a blaze instantly, even though it lie in the middle of the wet season and the trees, have been saturated for months, hoia other varieties of scrub timber have , this welcome quick-lighting property. Tkev must be saturated with oil instead of s ;ri. lias the nature of this oil been dete'imined?

On the very crown of the mountains, huge solitary fellows standing out above the pigmies of the range, there are no large trees, tor the ieason that the shrieking wind flattens all living things to the ground. That great bare patch on the pate of ail old sentinel, where not -even mosses can got a root-hold, shows the rjuaitoi whence the wind blows almost constantly. But on this other side a few queer, hardy plants grip with knotted roots deep into the cracks in the rocks, and there is a carpet of vines, inextricably tangled, two feet in depth. Here, even, are trees. But what dwarfed, queer-shaped objects they are! All bent and twisted, their tons flattened as level almost as a billiard table. Hut put a match - to one- of them. It -flares up immediately with a thick black smoke, and there oozes out a large quantity of black sap that looks just like tar, and burns as fiercely. Has that been investigated?

R ICH SOILS

Look down. Spread at our feet, as it seems, is a sea of dark green, stretching to every point of the coinpass, as far as the eye can see. It is the North Queensland tropical scrub. What enormous timber wealth, what beds of minerals, lie within that almost impenetrable jungle! For very many days you could journey on, cuttin-/ vour way through the dense .rrmvtlis, and at the summit of every mountain you would still gaze on ns grand panorama of emerald plain and black valleys winding between mountain and gorge. Tlu.se same valleys, many feet de.cn in the richest black and chocolate soil, will yet smile with the homes of hundreds of thousands. What shall their colour he?

THE INNOCENT LOOKING STING-

ING TREE

Climb down a thousand feet into the ocean of green. There is no wind here : every thing is very still and quiet, and there is semi-darkness among myriad tree trunks. We pass an innocent looking plant, with broad, iggreen leaves. It is the cursed stinging tree, one soft caress from which will make the strongest man writhe in agony for hours. If he be stung properly soon lie will he raving. M bat the 'poison in this plant? Is there no possibility that its malignant properties may he turned to the good ot humankind?

A little further on and a man puts out his hand to pull a. hanging \in>from his way. Instantly he drops the vine. A light electric shock has passed through his body. A red weal runs across''ltis hand. What are the P'ripe r ties in that vine? We twist' in among spreading lawyervines. A sl>Vskm trickles musically over some creeper-clad rocks. A small beginning;' but' 2000 feet below the range'it will‘have swelled into u foam-

ing torrent.' : beautiful perfumes.,

Hero at. its source lofty palms thrust U p, their broadrleafed crowns, struggling with the branches of the greater, trees for a share in tiro sun. From many of the palms hang bunches of use-ful-looking fibre. But it is not the beauties, of nature that, wo here marvel at ; it is the rich, almost intoxicating scented air. We peer up into the dark network of branches for the orchid that surely is responsible for this delight. But no painted beauty clings in the semi-darkness above us. Wo smell at the bark of the trees, but cannot locate th e source of the soenfl. Is there no chance here for the perfume dealer?

So much for the scrub, as sepn

I through the eyes of the prospector. But it is metals that appeal he him not trees. Yet there are vegetables that even the prospector greets with friendly eyes. Far up here in Cape York Peninsula is a fairly widely distributed tree, whoso -milky white juice is a cure for corns—corns and warts. Surely here is in this tree some property of commercial value? A common looking trunk supports at this moment th e ridge, pole of my tent. From its branches hang semi-transparent whit© lumps of gun. Dissolve it in water and a crystal-clear gun-arabic is formed, as a politician to his job. SHRUB THAT BLAZES LIKE gunpowder. Away on tho little-known West Coast I have* ridden across a vivid green-leaf-ed shrub. Apply a match to it and it instantly blazes -up as if it had been soaked in gunpowder. The first time I tried the experiment the result was so astonishing that I staggered back with burnt eyebrows, while confused thoughts tumbled through my brain about n. 'burning bush in the wilderness a dim memory of somethinfrom a long-forgotten Sunday-school. But my horse was practical. He sat hack on his tail, and with ono movement completed fours about bn his alxis then tore into the bush with dangling rein. It. meant fen miles of tracking for me a-ndi in bad nigger country too. And there are food plants by the dozen. So there you are, commercial botanists chemists and manufacturers. Here is ai vast and unoxploited field waiting to bring in wealth to the commercially minded and honours : of discovery to Unambitious. Nothing is too insignificant to merit your attention. If you arc about to turn aside from a paltry-look-ing shrub think bf that common-look-ing amber gum the Germans quietly bought for a few pounds a ton, they manufactured picric acid, which they returned to us inside the steel bowels of screaming shells —picric acid and Heaven and Hell know what else.