There is still another supply open. Allowing for a very large percentage of the water that finds its way into the watercourses of the West sinking into the earth or being lost through evaporation, a tremendous quantity that now runs to waste could be conserved by works such as the Government of New South Wales are constructing in the Murrumbidgee basin. Irrigation on a large scale is beyond the means of individuals--it must be undertaken either by private co-operation or by State enterprise; and preferably the latter. Irrigation and afforestation are both necessary for the successful development of the West. If water can be supplied to settlers at a cost which is not prohibitive, whether it be drawn from storage reservoirs or from subterranean sources, the face of the country will quickly be changed. Instead of a handful of pastoral lessees controlling in some instances areas of hundreds of thousands of acres, a much larger population of grazier farmers will be settled on much smaller holdings, enjoying all the benefits--educational, social, and civic--which result from concentrated settlement. A product of the land which is intimately connected with settlement, if somewhat outside the scope of this chapter, is timber. The forests of Queensland are very extensive, and contain numerous timbers of great value for building and cabinet-making. Chief among the former are several species of pine, hardwood, beech, and ash. The most beautiful and valuable of the ornamental woods are red cedar, silky oak, bean-tree, and maple. In the earliest settled districts in the South most of these have become comparatively scarce. The timber-getter has been through the scrubs and forests, and much that could not be converted into lumber has been destroyed by fire, to make the ground ready for the plough. In North Queensland there are immense quantities available, especially of the ornamental varieties, and a profitable trade has been opened up with the southern part of the State and with Sydney and Melbourne. Formerly the timber became the property of the selector, but now a royalty is charged, which yields the Crown a considerable revenue, and selection is deferred until the marketable trees have been removed. To prevent the exhaustion of the supplies, and as a preliminary to reafforestation, reserves have been proclaimed in several parts of the State to act as nurseries. Of the 429,120,000 acres contained in Queensland, at the close of 1908 some 21,500,000 acres--or just one-twentieth of the total area--had been selected as agricultural farms and homesteads; 31,000,000 acres were held as grazing and scrub selections, 56,000,000 acres were under occupation license or depasturing right, and 186,000,000 acres under pastoral lease, the remainder consisting either of reserves, mineral lands, or unoccupied land in remote localities.