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Western Australia.

of the soil and abundance of water everywhere, there can be no doubt that rice, cotton, coffee, tobacco, and other valuable productions, with all useful tropical fruits and vegetables, might be cultivated there. The Pine forests would afford timber, boards, and spars, for use and exportation. There are also in the North vegetable fibres of bark and grass used by the natives for making lines and nets for fishing, and which are remarkable for toughness. The mangrove, which is found on all the shallow parts of the coast, supplies firewood, and is otherwise much utilized for domestic purposes.

All the fruits and vegetables of sub-tropical and temperate regions flourish when cultivated in the South-West parts of the Colony. The stone pine may be found by the side of the araucaria, and the apple by the loquat; but the vine, fig tree, olive, and orange, the almond and its congeners, seem peculiarly adapted to the soil and climate, as indeed are mulberry, tobacco, and cotton. The castor oil plant grows freely on rubbish, or in any neglected corner. The melon tribe, and all leguminous plants flourish in great luxuriance. Of the cereals wheat will not probably be found to flourish North of the Murchison, but maize may be cultivated throughout the Colony; in the South and West the rose and geranium are naturalized.

The native animals are the dog, a wolf-like animal with bushy tail, very destructive to sheep; the kangaroo, of which three species are found in the open woods, the thickets, and on the plains. The red kangaroo, a smaller kind, is found only among rocks so barren of vegetation as to make the means of its subsistence doubtful; the wallaby, a still smaller species, is found in the thickets near the coast and on the plains; the existence