96. A natural market value, rather than an artificial royalty, should be adopted as the basis of timber sale. The uniform royalty expedient must go.

97. Stumpage values must be based on market prices, less the cost of cutting, extraction, and transport to the market.

98. The Forest Service, however, should fix minimum selling prices for each forest, which represent the point at which it is believed to be a wise public policy to withhold timber from sale rather than sell it at the market value then obtainable. There are cases, however, where it would pay better to give trees away rather than leave them to cumber the forest, and the Forest Service should not hamper its management by the prescription by Regulation of high State minimums. Upsets for each sale provide adequate safeguards. Maximums depend upon imports and tariffs.

99. Direct government exploitation may be reached through development of the methods of stumpage appraisals.

100. The destructive systems of competitive exploitation occasioned by the indiscriminate granting of licenses for the same area must be abolished if silvicultural success, or even ordinary business system, is to be achieved.

101. Every operator should be confined to a definite timber lot, for the operations on which he should be held responsible. He should be required to work in accordance with the terms of an agreement drawn up by the managing forester.

102. The agreement should specify a maximum quantity for the period and a minimum per month. Its conditions should provide for conservative timber-getting and necessary silvicultural measures.

103. The term should be short, generally not exceeding one year. The quantities should be based, generally, upon what a single operator can extract in the time. The sale of the agreement should be at public competition, after due advertisement. Upset prices per 100 square feet should be fixed accurately on natural market values, less the cost of cutting, snigging, and hauling.

104. Sales for each forest should be yearly or half-yearly, and should be limited to the prescribed yield for the area.

105. A reasonable operating life for established plants may best be guaranteed by such short-term sales up to the limits of the maximum periodic cut. Unrestricted sales at low prices tend to produce a host of small, temporary plants on the "boom and bust" principle.

(4.) Working Plans.

Working plans are nothing more than orderly records of information, and the deduced ideas of the manager with regard to the future working of the forest.

Working plans develop as the organisation grows.

The confusion of thought which exists with regard to working plans is due to the fact that our only model-the European formtoo often reflects the complexity of the organisation of which it is the instrument.

In the American experiment, the attempt was made to apply to the_management of the primaeval forest the working plan of the gardened one.

Organisation and working plans started off at opposite poles. Time has elaborated the former and simplified the latter until both are now practically co-incident and co-ordinate.

The American lesson for Australia is that development must start from the rock bottom of established facts.

The vehicles are policy, forest organisation, silvicultural research, and annual working plans.

106. Each Forest Service needs urgently legislative enactment vesting in it: (1) An adequate forest estate; (2) wide powers of technical management; (3) authority to reinvest forest revenue in the forest business.

107. The reports and maps resulting from forest survey should be employed as the basis of the working plan. Division of the area is fundamental, and a tentative arrangement into convenient units of estimation, management, and operation, with complete road systems, should be worked out on the map. To the report should be attached a short prescription fixing the maximum periodic cut, and outlining the general timber sale policy to be applied.

and

108. Silvicultural methods, based upon the results of research, prepared in accordance with a standard outline, should be suggested for each species and each forest type.

109. An annual working plan report should be required for each forest under management. In that report the year's records and results should be assembled and discussed, and plans for the ensuing period sketched. This annual report would be actually the living working plan, whose normal growth would bring in course of time the final working plan, which prescribes the policy of management not for one year but for twenty.

(5.) Reforestation and Afforestation.

110. Artificial regeneration of forests in Australia by planting is justified only:

(a) Where natural regeneration has failed.

(b) Where waste lands, burns, and watersheds are to be afforested.
(c) Where cheap exotic softwoods, not replaceable by native timbers,
must be produced.

In contrast to the high New Zealand expenditure of at least £7 per acre, is the American one of 25s. per acre, due to improved nursery and planting methods.

111. I recommend the introduction of scientific management into nursery and planting practice in Australia.

112. The following devices should be imported into afforestation work in Australia.

(a) The Savenac threading board and threading table.

(b) The transplanting rake and trenching hoe.

(c) The Feigly tree digger for lifting plants for stock distribution. (d) The packing-machine and the bundle method.

(e) The modified trenching plough.

(f) The United States of America Forest Service planting bag and

tool.

113. Planting operations should be restricted at present to the most favourable areas, with a view to developing successful methods capable of application to less-favoured sites.

114. The United States of America planting formation and methods should be adopted.

115. The ground should be prepared for planting only just so far as is absolutely necessary. In many cases there should be no preparation.

116. Detailed cost-keeping records should be kept, and there should be a close study and careful recording of results for further guidance.

117. Annual nursery and planting reports on United States of America lines should be adopted.

118. The collection of seed for afforestation purposes should constitute part of the duty of forest overseers.

(6.) Fire Protection.

The practice of silviculture must be preceded by fire protection. Bush fires in Australia have thinned the timber stands, injured or stunted the survivors, rendering them branchy, and opening the door to white ant infestations, and finally routed regeneration and impoverished the soil.

Yet to bush fires has been ascribed the alleged prolific reproduction in Australian forests. One fire at the right time may be useful; it is the recurrent firing that has wrecked the Australian timber lands.

The solution of the bush fire problem is not difficult if we give up the search for miracles.

Achievement is possible only through patient organisation.

The measures to be taken are those relating to prevention, detection, and suppression.

There must be an active promulgation among the general public and forest users of an attitude towards forest fires and forest incendiarism parallel to that felt in regard to a burning house:

I recommend:-
:-

119. Persistent publicity, through signs and posters, books and notices, issuance of forest fire news for publication, education in the school, personal appeal.

The fire liability should be reduced as far as possible.

The forest user must do his part.

I propose

120. The attachment, whenever advisable, of conditions to licenses, permits, and timber sale agreements, to provide for (a) lopping, stacking, and burning debris; (b) the cutting of dead trees which by their height constitute a fire menace: (c) the clearing of the right of ways of railways and logging railroads; (d) the use of spark arresters on engines; (e) the regulation of camp fire building.

121. The establishment of depôts of fire-fighting tools at forest stations and at likely places in State forests.

122. The opening up of every part of a State forest by roads and tracks, to provide access and firebrakes.

The cost of establishing a 100 per cent. system of divisional firebreaks to control a 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. burn would be overwhelming.

The construction of firebreaks, other than roads, should not ordinarily be undertaken.

One of the main difficulties of the situation is to ascertain quickly the outbreak of a fire.

I do not advocate any such costly system of lookouts as that adopted in the United States of America. The forest overseers' stations should ordinarily be fire lookouts. Further extension of the lookout system should not usually be necessary.

123. License conditions or timber sale provisoes should stipulate that all forest users must report the outbreak of bush fires, and personally assist to extinguish them.

124. Arrangements should be made beforehand with non-forest users who are resident in the locality similarly to report outbreaks and assist in suppression.

125. A fire study should be made for each State forest, and a fire plan prepared, embracing the results of this study, and the measures of fire control to be undertaken for the specific area.

126. The keystone of the fire plan is the proposed forest overseer, who should maintain a constant lookout during the fire season, and upon the occurrence of a fire should set the fire plan in motion and superintend the work of suppression.

(7.) Grazing.

The efficacy of fire protection policies depends very largely indeed upon the grazing policy.

But, more than that, the economic use of the large forest fodder resource of tree, shrub, and herb which occurs on the forest estate, is a subject which intimately concerns the forest administration, since it has a large bearing upon the question of utilisation of the timber supplies.

127. Forest grazing control should be vested wholly in the Forest Service.

128. I recommend the establishment of a separate branch to deal with the forest fodder business; and the appointment of a grazing expert to organise and control that business in accordance with forestry interests.

129. A scheme of grazing reconnaissance on United States of America Forest Service lines should be developed, as a vehicle for stocktaking of the forest forage resource.

130. The system of forest leasing for grazing purposes should be abolished absolutely; it should be replaced by a system of annual grazing permits on a charge per capita basis, subject to such conditions as are necessary in the forest interest, and such royalties as represent a fair and reasonable market value, and revocable at the discretion of the forest administration.

131. In the issue of such grazing permits preference should be given to forest users and adjoining residents.

132. A maximum number of stock should be fixed for each State forest, and for each permittee. Reductions should be made where the interests of the forest growth require.

133. Grazing operations should be limited to the period best suited to the forest needs.

134. Endeavour should be made to allot each class of stock to individual ranges.

135. Salting, as a measure of forest protection, should be a condition of the permit.

136. The forest overseer of the State forest should be in immediate charge of grazing operations, and exploitation of the forest forage resource. Where necessary, herdsman-forest guards might be employed to assist him.

137. The adoption of the grazing system and procedure proposed would pave the way also for direct forage exploitation by the State if such should be deemed advisable.

138. Special measures should be taken to conserve and control the valuable drought-tree forage of the inland districts. Its disposal should be regulated closely under grazing permits carrying royalties approximating as closely as possible to the real and ascertainable value of the forage.

(8.) Special Uses.

139. For the disposal of occupancies of portions of State forests for purposes other than grazing and timber sale, I recommend the adoption of the revocable annual permit, subject to such conditions and charges as are advisable in the forest interest. Leasing should be prohibited.

(9.) Forest Pest Control.

Forest pests, such as white ants, borers, mantis, wombats, &c., have been responsible for tremendous forest wastage.

140. I recommend the establishment of a section of the Forest Service to deal with forest pests.

141. I propose that a forest entomologist and zoologist should be appointed to carry out a systematic investigation with regard to the forest pests of the State. He might be stationed at the Forest Institute, so that his services would be available also for instructional purposes.

(10.) The Forest Water Resource.

142. There should be a stocktaking of the water supply resources of the State forests, with a view to their better protection and development.

143. This work should be done in the course of forest survey, and should be under the direction of the proposed branch of forest engineering.

(11.) Forest Offences.

Severity in the settlement of forest offences produces frequently the spirit of the revanche"; systematic mildness often results in co-operation.

There has been considerable confusion of thought with regard to the policy of settling forest offences, and considerable time, trouble, and friction have been involved.

144. Apart from the penal provisions of the forest laws, there should be a standardisation of procedure for the departmental settlement of forest offences on American lines.

145. There should be separate treatment for intentional and unintentional acts of forest trespass; in the first case, the measure of damage should be the American one of the "value of the timber in its condition when and where found," plus the damage done to the forest: in the second case, the measure should be "the difference in the value of the area before and after the trespass."

146. Departmental procedure should provide for an analysis of the breach in accordance with this policy; district foresters should be authorised to settle first offence cases without recourse to legal proceedings, where the damage is below £25.

(12.) Office Methods.

147. I recommend as a measure of labour saving, the adoption at both head and district offices of the cardless vertical filing system, with a subjective. classification arranged on a self-indexing basis.

148. Office work should be reduced as far as possible by the decentralisation of authority. District foresters should be given enlarged powers of district management; officers should be relieved, to the greatest degree practicable, of the burden of investigating and reporting upon appeals or complaints.