AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3040, 9 January 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION.

A thousand minor pirtiuuUrs of faun and flora, clear to the eye of the naturti list, do nut impair the grout fact of th extraordinary general resemblance of th interior of Australia. And tho action o man has tended, and is ever tending, mor iind more to accentuate this rcsembliincc Paitoralism, bouinuing , with cattle an< continuing with sheep, tho r;ihbit follow ing , mviftly in their train from sourh t north, has, chunk* to reckless ovor.-toMt inir and system of tree destruction equall , reckless, pressed u pitilecs o desolation oh (lie face of the wholu land The natural gra-sos, with nil thei wonders of luxuriancp and lovely floivir ing, have bad whole genera destroyodoaten out at tho roots by the famishim animals. Only clumps of the wiria grass — tussocks, an they are called - survive into tho severe sea-ons. Nothini more mournful than the great plains treeless and grassle>a, that are to bi found all over Australia. The pallid ski without a cloud opppresves you with it" intolerable burthen, and your eyes uchi with looking towards the viowlesi horizon, eraoking like a oauldron. Oftei thoro is no sign of lifo vhuloi'er. Mat has exterminated the kantrnroo and thi emu, and oven the dicgo, as much witl overstocking as with lend and strychnine Tho roads are little nioro thau' blown bare rectilineal passages, whoso soli ornaments are perchance, the telegrapl poles and wires running , exactly dowr the middle, and the skeletons and oaroasd! of sheep or of some patient bullock whr has done something more than hie duty, are its only landmarks. Tho ercrlnitins wire fenots hem you in on either side. Within the memory of miny these £>lain> waved with grass so high that a horseman was soon hid in them. In those days squatters sheared a hundred thou. naud (iheep whero to-duy they shear much lens than half as many. "Shepherds' 1 teuded their flocks by as they did in Syria and Mesopotamia of od, and guided their wanderings by sun and star, as the nomadic shearers still do at times. There was life and living in these plains before the wire fence came and shut the sheep up in gigantic lidless boxes, where they became wild aninals, only disturbed once or twice a year by dogs aad men driving them into the •• yards " in a foy of dust. But there are other and more cheerful aspects of the intsrior than this. Seasons of drought are followed by seasons of flood. Sometimes even the land is blessed with mild and continuous rain. Then, in the better localities, a few days will eeo an astonishing transformation. First a thin nnd vivid green, like the breaking , of the buds on the twigs after tho first warm showers of the English spring, lights up tho earth ; then the grass comes darker hued and more dense, and last of all it bends and waves in beautiful luxuriance. All sorts of flo were burst into bloom, and in the spring the plains will bo carpeted with vast sheets of blue. Tho terrors of the drought become like the fading memory of a bad dream. Nothing is more wonderful than the power of recuperation innate in nil the forms of vegetation, and, indeed, of life uenerally. Everything seems to only ask for tho slightest excuse to increase and multiply to profusion. Xowhore i» tho heartless wnstef.ilness o* naturo inoro overwhelming. A few warm showers in the forefront of midsummer drought till the water-hole?, clcthe the plains, and hurry fish, flesh, and fowl into teeming existenoc. In three dars the bitter agony of fevered death is upon them. To day Australia may flow with milk and honey; to-morrow she may flow with vinegar and gall. It will bo many a long and weary decado before leopard changes her Spots and tho Ethiop his skin, and this Interior, its extravagant alternhtions, its barren fecundity, its sinister charm.