by Don Watson
It had taken over 10 years but the penny finally dropped that maybe the natives had more value than conventional agriculture had given them credit for. We now know that in terms of protein yield and persistence and the like they win hands down against any exotic you can grow on this landscape. So, that was where the interest in using native plants for farming for agriculture came from.
It was the pragmatist in me. I was faced with a situation where we couldn’t continue to use this land the way it had been used. There were a few individuals inside the Department of Ag, the old Lands Department, even in Rural Water, who could see that fundamental changes needed to made. But you could hold meetings with those people in a phone box that at stage. The Landcare movement did not exist. There was still the rape and pillage mentality that had prevailed since Europeans first set foot in this country. I think it has to be put in an historical perspective – most of the people that came to Australia to go farming were not farmers, they had no rural background at all. You had a philosophy that the landscape and vegetation was alien, that if it didn’t come from Europe, didn’t look like England it was basically worthless, to be removed . . .
There’s 110 species of birds in these hills. It’s one of the yardsticks that we’ve used to measure our own success. Our bird species list has doubled in the last 20 years. Most of that increase has come in the last 10 years. The only thing that can be put down to is habitat and food supply. We’ve also been noticing increasing numbers of reptiles – goannas, snakes, venomous and pythons, skinks, lizards generally. Given that all these things are insect predadators, they’re well worth having about.
What we have to do, I think, is to get the farming community and the broader community – it’s not just the cockies – to understand the economic benefits of native vegetation, be it direct as in the grazing of grasses and plants, but also the more indirect benefits. A property that is well set up and has habitat for wildlife – predatory bats, predatory birds, predatory insects – is going to require less sprays, less insect control. You’ve got in-house insect control. Biodiversity has a dollar value. The problem we have is showing farm to farm what that may be . . .
There isn’t a salt problem in the Murray Darling Basin. There is a water problem. There’s more water that enters this valley than leaves it. That results in the salting. It dissolves the salts in the soils, the water table rises bringing them into the root zone and the party’s over for most of the plants at that stage.
The saltbush, by its ability to transpire water to the atmosphere and therefore pump the water table down, means that the trees will grow larger root systems, they will have more space and depth to grow in, they will be healthier trees. The advantage to the saltbush of having the trees is the habitat and food supply for birds and predatory insects. Some of the trees we are putting in, we plan to use as agro-forestry high value furniture timber. The vast majority of what we’ve planted will be left as habitat, windbreak, insect and bird food supply and the aesthetic value for humans to hang around the landscape.
The People’s Forest: A Living History of the Australian Bush, Gregg Borschmann (ed.),
The People’s Forest Press Foundation Ltd, Blackheath, NSW, 1999
Thomas Livingstone Mitchell
1846–47
1
18th December There are two shrubs palpably salt, and, perhaps, there is something salsolaceous in the herbage also on which cattle thrive so well; and the open plains and muddy waterholes are their delight . . . At this sheep station where we had encamped, I met with an individual who had seen better days, and had lost his property amid the wreck of colonial bankruptcies – a tea-totaller, with Pope’s Essay on Man for his consolation, in a bark hut. This “melancholy Jaques” lamented the state of depravity to which the colony was reduced, and assured me that there were shepherdesses in the bush! This startling fact should not be startling, but for the disproportion of sexes, and the squatting system which checks the spread of families.
If pastoralisation were not one thing, and colonisation another, the occupation of tending sheep should be as fit and proper for women as for men. The pastoral life, so favourable to love and the enjoyment of nature, has ever been a favourite theme of the poet. Here it appears to be the antidote of all poetry and propriety, only because man’s better half is wanting. Under this unfavourable aspect the white man first comes before the aboriginal native; were the intruders accompanied by women and children, they could not be half so unwelcome. One of the most striking differences between squatting and settling in Australia consists in this. Indeed if it were an object to uncivilise the human race, I know of no method more likely to effect it than to isolate a man from the gentler sex and children; remove afar off all courts of justice and means of redress of grievances, all churches and schools, all shops where he can make use of money, then place him in close contact with savages. “What better off am I than a black native?” was the exclamation of a shepherd to me just before I penned these remarks.
20th Dec . . . We had encamped near those very springs mentioned as seen on my former journey, but instead of being limpid and surrounded by verdant grass, as they had been then, they were now trodden by cattle into muddy holes, where the poor natives had been endeavouring to protect a small portion from the cattle’s feet, and keep it pure, by laying over it trees they had cut down for the purpose. The change produced in the aspect of this formerly happy secluded valley, by the intrusion of cattle and the white man, was by no means favourable, and I could easily conceive how I, had I been an aboriginal native, should have felt and regretted that change . . .
24th Jan This morning I awoke completely blind, from ophthalmia, and was obliged to have poultices laid on my eyes; several of the men were also affected in the same manner. The exciting cause of this malady in an organ presenting a moist surface was, obviously, the warm air wholly devoid of moisture, and likely to produce the same effect until the weather changed. At 9 P. M., therm. 84°, with wet bulb, 68°.
25th Jan Dr. Stephenson having recommended the application of leeches, and having observed them in the ponds at Nyingan, I sent William Baldock and Yuranigh there in search of some, and they brought back enough. Fourteen were applied to my eyes the same afternoon . . .
13th February Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks as of breaking timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river bank. By very slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length, so audible as to draw various persons besides from the camp to the river-side. Still no flood appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending of trees with a loud noise. Such a phenomenon in a most serene moonlight night was quite new to us all. At length, the rushing sound of waters and loud cracking of timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed, of what thus again became a flowing river . . .
2
19th February We set off early, guided by our native friend. He was a very perfect specimen of the GENUS HOMO, and such as never is to be seen, except in the precincts of savage life, undegraded by any scale of graduated classes, and the countless bars these present to the free enjoyment of existence. His motions in walking were more graceful than can be imagined by any who have only seen those of the draped and shod animal. The deeply set yet flexible spine; the taper form of the limbs; the fulness yet perfect elasticity of the GLUTEI muscles. The hollowness of the back, and symmetrical balance of the upper part of the torso, ornamented as it was, like a piece of fine carving, with raised scarifications most tastefully placed; such were some of the characteristics of this perfect “piece of work”. Compared with it, the civilised animal, when considered merely in the light of a specimen in n
atural history, how inferior! In vain might we look amongst thousands of that class, for such teeth; such digestive powers; for such organs of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling; for such powers of running, climbing, or walking; for such full enjoyment of the limpid water, and of all that nature provides for her children of the woods. Such health and exemption from disease; such intensity of existence, in short, must be far beyond the enjoyments of civilised men, with all that art can do for them; and the proof of this is to be found in the failure of all attempts to persuade these free denizens of uncultivated earth to forsake it for the tilled ground. They prefer the land unbroken and free from the earliest curse pronounced against the first banished and first created man. The only kindness we could do for them, would be to let them and their wide range of territory alone; to act otherwise and profess good-will is but hypocrisy. We cannot occupy the land without producing a change, fully as great to the aborigines, as that which took place on man’s fall and expulsion from Eden. They have hitherto lived utterly ignorant of the necessity for wearing fig leaves, or the utility of ploughs; and in this blissful state of ignorance they would, no doubt, prefer to remain. We bring upon them the punishments due to original sin, even before they know the shame of nakedness. Such were the reflections suggested to my mind by the young savage as he tripped on lightly before me by the side of his two half-civilised brethren of our party, who, muffled up in clothes, presented a contrast by no means in favour of our pretensions to improve and benefit their race. Yet our faithful Yuranigh was all that could be wished . . .
3
The plains, or rather, I should say, downs, for they were nowhere level but everywhere gently undulating, were first seen in white streaks high above us, when we first perceived them through the scrubs. These downs consisted of the richest sort of black mould, on which grew luxuriantly, ANTHISTIRIA and PANICUM LOEVINODE. But the surface in general was loose, resembling that of a field after it had lain long in fallow. Herbs in great variety were just emerging from the recently watered earth, and the splendid morning did ample justice to the vernal scene. The charm of a beginning seemed to pervade all nature, and the songs of many birds sounded like the orchestral music before the commencement of any theatrical performance. Such a morning, in such a place, was quite incompatible with the brow of care. Here was an almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a latitude corresponding to that of China, yet still uncultivated and unoccupied by man. A great reserve, provided by nature for the extension of his race, where economy, art, and industry might suffice to people it with a peaceful, happy, and contented population . . .
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, London, 1848
Georgiana Molloy
1837
My dear Sir, Having at length complied with your desires to obtain flowers and seeds from Augusta, I send you the result of my labours, which at one time I had not the least hope of being able to do in a satisfactory manner.
Under the afflicting but unscrutable decree of an all-wise Providence, we have recently been overwhelmed with the most bitter loss of our darling infant and only son of 19 months by the aggravated death of drowning. Painful as it is to record – distance of time and place compels me.
Captain Molloy, myself and his little sisters had been playing with him watching his vigorous and frolicsome mood just after breakfast on 11 November 1837. We separated each to our necessary duties, (that morning I was preparing to bake and churn). I left dear little Johnnie in my only servant girl’s charge. She imagined from having seen him with Mary and near his Papa that he was still there. Mary appeared without him, which instantly struck us, as they were inseparable. Charlotte had put the dear child in his cradle, and not finding him where she last saw him, she asked Molloy, then me. I had not seen him, but answered: ‘He had his bell on,’ – (a little bell he wore round his waist, in case of his straying into the bush). I instantly ran out, and on her running up and down and not finding him, I exclaimed: ‘Have you been to the well?’ and became quite alarmed. Captain Molloy said, ‘Do not frighten yourself, he never goes there!’ The fatal truth stole over me, and on Charlotte going to the well, she said: ‘Here’s the Boy,’ and pulled out that darling precious child, lifeless, his flaxen curls all dripping, his little countenance so placid, he looked fast asleep, but not dead; and we do not believe he really was so until some minutes later. But the medical man was at the Vasse, and we did not know what to do. We tried every means of restoration, but to no effect. And that lovely, healthy child, who had never known pain or sickness and who had been all mirth and joyousness the last time we beheld him together, was now a stiff corpse, but beautiful and lovely even in death.
The well is in full view of the windows, about a stone’s cast away, concealed certainly by the Virgillia and Mimosa trees. He had not been absent ten minutes, but from being a very fat heavy child, and after eating an enormous breakfast I am told, this increased his rapid step from life to Death; but had any Medical Man been near, I am fully persuaded my little Johnny might have been saved.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for thus using towards a Stranger the freedom and minute detail that Friendship warrants and desires. Our children and our necessary occupations fraught as they are with uncontemplated interest, engross the sole attention and exertions of myself and my excellent husband. Acute indeed was the blow, and when you reflect how dead we are to the World, and completely weaned from that sphere of pursuits, actions and modes of life in which we used to move, I trust you will pardon and excuse my entering thus egotistically and minutely on our present affliction.
Georgiana Molloy: Portrait with Background,
Alexandra Hasluck (ed.), Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2002
Frank Moorhouse
1988
That Christmas he went into the Budawang Ranges with Belle.
They had debauched in motel rooms and restaurants along the coast while he turned forty, bed sheets drenched with champagne and with all the smells and fluids that two bodies could be made to offer up in such dark love-making as, in their curious way, he and Belle were drawn into. But the conversations in the restaurants had become unproductively sadistic as they exhausted amiable conversation.
He’d gone increasingly into interior conversation with himself about ‘turning forty’ because she was too young to have empathy with his turning forty. And he was trying to salve the loss of his young girlfriend who was overseas and ‘in love’.
He also had some home-yearnings which came on at Christmas. His family was not in town for this Christmas, but anyhow his home-yearnings had been displaced over the years away from his family in the town to the bush about fifty kilometres away from, but behind, the coastal town where he had grown up – the Sassafras bush in the Budawang Ranges.
He’d put camping gear in the car when they’d left the city and they drove as deep into the bush as the road permitted and then left the car and backpacked their way.
As they walked deeper into the bush he kept glancing at Belle to see if she was being affected by the dull warm day and the bush. He knew the creeping hysteria and dread which the Australian bush could bring about.
She saw him looking back at her and said, ‘I’m coping. Stop looking back at me all the time.’
They walked for an hour or so and came to what is called Mitchell Lookout.
‘This is called Mitchell Lookout,’ he said, ‘but as you can see it is not a lookout in the Rotary sense.’
It was a shelf of rock with a limited view of the gorge.
‘Lookouts are an eighteenth-century, European act of nature worship which Rotary clubs have carried on. The growth is too thick – you can’t see the river down there. You’ll have to take my word for it.’
‘I can see that the growth is too thick.’
‘Laughably, the only thing you can see clearly from Mitchell Lookout is directly across the gorge – they could have another lookout which looked across at Mitchell Lookout.’
He s
aw her look across at the other side and back again. She made a small movement of her mouth to show that she didn’t think it was particularly ‘laughable’.
‘I don’t go into the bush for views,’ he said.
‘Tell me – what do you go into the bush for?’
‘I go into the bush to be swallowed whole. I don’t go into the bush to look at curious natural formations – I don’t marvel at God’s handiwork.’
For reasons he could not explain and did not record in his log book, he decided to put the tent on the rock ledge overlooking the gorge.
‘You’ll find sleeping on the rock is OK,’ he said, ‘it is really much better than you imagine.’
‘If you say so,’ she said, dumping her backpack.
‘I go into the bush for raw unanalysed sensory experience,’ he said, ‘I don’t go in for naming things geologically or birds and so on.’
‘You don’t have to apologise for not knowing the names of the birds and the stones.’
He cut some bracken fern to lie on, more as a gesture towards the idea of what made for comfort.
‘That’ll do a fat amount of good,’ Belle said.
‘It’s a gesture.’