File:The Land of the Lyre bird; a story of early settlement in the great forest of south Gippsland. Being a description of the Big Scrub in its virgin state with its birds and animals, and of the (14749769105).jpg

Identifier: landoflyrebirdst00melb (find matches)
Title: The Land of the Lyre bird; a story of early settlement in the great forest of south Gippsland. Being a description of the Big Scrub in its virgin state with its birds and animals, and of the adventures and hardship of its early explorers and prospectors; also accounts by the settlers of the clearing, settlement, and development of the country
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors:
Subjects: Gippsland (Vic.) Victoria -- History
Publisher: Melbourne : Pub. for the Committee of the South Gippsland Pioneers' Association by Gordon and Gotch
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ood a burn, and itcost more to pick up. The big timber was generally blackbutt and blue gmn.The bottom was usually open and good to get aoout in — oenerallv catheadfern.s—but in places there was a sood deal of swordgrass. with wiresnass inthe flats. The sapling scrub was the most imposing of all and by far the mostcostly to clear, costing from one to two pounds to cut. and up to four poundsan acre to pick up and burn off. It grew on stronger land than the otherscrub, and consisted very largely of gum saplings running up from sixty toa hundred and twenty feet in height, and up to three feet in diameter. Therewas also a good deal of blackwood, lightwood and wattle, with a little hazeland mu.sk. There was practically no big timber standing, but a great deallying down, and the bottom was very rough, with fallen spars and swordgrassor wiregrass. In the messmate country bordering the big scrub there was usually agrowth more properly deserving the name of scrub, and consisting of prickly
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44 THE SCRUB. mimosa, clover-bcrub, lea-tree, grass-tree, gum-sapling-s and ferns. Alongthe creeks and risers rising in the big scrub country, similar scrub to that onthe hills grew for some distance along their courses, and also a good deal oftea-tree. The whole of the foliage of the big scrub, except the gums, of course, wasedible to stock, and was sometimes felled for them; but they often made agood liAdng in the scrub on their own account during the Winter where therewere good wiregrass flats. The life history of this great scrub has a certain fascination for manywho take an interest in the mysterious operations of nature in the floralAvorld. Why parts of the scrub should be almost exclusively hazel, othersmusk, and others saiilings, while in others they all grew together, was ac-counted for by some in the quality of the land. But then we know that natureso often changed her floral decorations after a fire that one never could tellwhether the scrub you found growing in a particula

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