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NEW SOUTH WALES.

The following observations, recorded in Mr. Cunningham's _Two Years in
New South Wales_, are as valuable as they are interesting; for hitherto
we have known but little of the natural history of that country:--

_Trees_.--Trees here appear to follow the same laws as other vegetable
substances, regarding the effects they produce upon the soil wherein
they grow. It has long been remarked in America, that on the forests
being cut down, young trees of a different species sprout up in place of
the old ones; and here the same remark, in a great measure, holds
good,--acacias very commonly making their appearance on land that has
been once under cultivation, and afterwards permitted to relapse into a
state of nature. From this circumstance it should seem, that trees, like
other vegetables, extract a particular substance from the ground, which
substance it is necessary should be restored before the same species of
tree can be readily grown a second time,--a restoration to be effected,
perhaps, by such chemical changes in the constituent particles of the
soil as may arise from the cultivation of other species.

_Fruits_.--Of native fruits, we possess raspberries equal in flavour and
not otherwise distinguishable from the English. They grow plentifully
on the alluvial banks of Hunter's river, and supply a yearly Christmas
feast to the birds. Oar native currants are strongly acidulous, like the
cranberry, and make an excellent preserve when mixed with the raspberry.
They grow on low shrubs not higher than the whortleberry bush. Our
cherries are destitute both of pleasant taste and flavour, and have
the stone adhering to their outside. Our native pears are tolerably
tempting to the look, but defy both mastication and digestion, being the
pendulous seed-pods of a tree here, and their outer husks of such a hard
woody consistence, as to put the edge of even a well-tempered knife to
proof of its qualities in slicing them down. The burwan is a nut much
relished by our natives, who prepare it by roasting and immersion in a
running stream, to free it from its poisonous qualities. The jibbong is
another tasteless fruit, as well as the _five-corners_, much relished by
children. The wild potato strongly resembles the species now in use in
Europe, but the stem and leaf are essentially different. It grows on the
loose flooded alluvial margins of the rivers, and at one period of the
year compo