TREE-PLANTING ON ISLANDS AND REEFS.
The pilot vessels at Broadsound, Mackay, Townsville, and Cooktown have been frequently utilised during the last twelve months in conveying cocoanut and other trees, to the various islands and reefs adjacent to our coast, where they have been planted, and the lightkeepers in the neighbourhood have been instructed to protect the young plants as far as possible. Tree culture, especially the cocoanut—for which the coral islands form congenial homes—is important, not only commercially, but as contributing to the safety of navigation, the existence of trees rendering the outlying islands and reefs more conspicuous, and are more serviceable than beacons. As an article of food, the cocoanuts would prove invaluable to shipwrecked crews. Those planted on some of the islands are thriving well, especially some 200 young plants on the Lizard Islands. The trees that have been planted recently require protection in some way, or they will disappear, as did the fully-matured trees which existed some years ago on the Frankland Islands.