Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1887 — Forest-Destroyers of Australia. [ARTICLE]

Forest-Destroyers of Australia.

The crop-destroying rabbit appears to be not the only animal plague in Australia. The decay of the. forests is traced by Rov. P. Macpherson, of the Eoval Society of New South Wales, to the opossums. After much investigation it was ascertained that a single animal would devour about 200 leaves of the eucalyptus, or blue gum tree, in a night, proving that the 18,000 opossums killed annually in the county of Victoria were sufficient to destroy upward of 13,000 trees and lay bare a space of 700 acres, or more than a sqnare mile. Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.— Samuel Lover.