Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
after rain or a fresh flush in the river. It is a vast mosaic of grassed plains, soft earth,
and thickets of white cypress pine, she oaks and dense shrubs. The red country
supports semi-arid woodlands of mulga, poplar box, kurrajong, wilga, myall, and
budda. Many of these native species are labelled 'woody weeds' today: undesirable
plants that make grazing difficult. The red country at the Bogan represented the
typical conditions with which settlers would have to contend in any plans for
populating the dry interior: shallow sandy soils, hot summers, low variable rainfall,
and little or no surface water. It had long been established there were no great
inland rivers, and hopes that artesian water might 'redeem' the interior were fading.
Would the continent's interior be an impediment to the colony's ambitions
forever? Pastoral occupation had failed to create stable settlements. Agriculture
might bring civilisation to the inland plains, but was it possible there? The New
South Wales Government saw the Bogan scrublands as the place to find out.
In 1897, the New South Wales Under-Secretary for Lands, William Houston,
journeyed to what were known as the 'West Bogan wastelands' to inspect the
country. He reported that on either side of the route for 175 miles, 'it would be
no exaggeration to say that the greater part of it is in its present condition a
forbidding wilderness' (Anon, 1897b: 3). It was country that went unused in the
face of the Divine Command to subdue the land or to legitimately possess it by
tilling it. It was also a place left degraded by overstocking during the preceding
decades of pastoral speculation. The Western Herald commented the land was
'temporarily ruined by the growth of scrub' (Anon, 1896b). There were calls for
the government to ensure the country was occupied immediately so that small
landholders practising scientific agriculture could carry out remedial work and stop
the spread of the encroaching scrub (Anon, 1897b).
The Oxford English Dictionary says scrub is a variant of shrub. Australians have
used scrub to describe both plants and places. It could be used in a very general
sense to mean uncultivated land, either in a 'virgin' state or abandoned. Usually it
has meant a tract of country that is more densely timbered than surrounding areas
with relatively low growing trees and bushes. In The Default Country , lexicographer
Jay Arthur (2003) noted that the vegetation is regarded as 'stunted' even if it has
reached its full height, suggesting a perception of lack and inferiority. It is an
assessment of vegetation in relation to its value for grazing and agriculture. The
low and tangled trees and shrubs prevent easy passage and stock could easily wander
from trails in such conditions. Unlike on an open plain, the landholder's gaze is
obscured. Settlers did not view the scrublands with contempt at first. Perceptions
began to change in the 1880s, after disruption to Aboriginal land management,
restriction of fire, and over-grazing altered the composition of the western
vegetation, and 'scrub' took on entirely negative connotations.
Landholders began to report that the scrub was changing. It was resisting all
attempts to occupy it. The character of the semi-arid woodlands altered so that the
hard, spiky and unpalatable plants dominated. One newspaper reporter following
the Minister for Lands' visit to the western districts in the 1880s said of the dry
woodlands at Byrock, north of Coolabah:
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