STATE FORESTRY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 153, 10 April 1930, Page 4

STATE FORESTRY.

CONFERENCE OF OFFICERS. (Per Press Association.) NELSON. April 9. The Hen. W*. B. Taverner, Commissioner of State Forests, opened the annual conference of executives officers of the Forestry Department. Nelson, he said, had entered upon the second phase of forestry history, the replacement of indigenous, softwood forests with exotic plantations, and to foresters this changing of the old. order must be very interesting indeed. He had noticed iln Nelson and Marlborough the presence of specimens of exotic trees evidently planted by the pioneer settlers. These trees had attained remarkable growth and must be of great interest, showing that-the soil was well suited for afforestation. The Minister referred to the presence here of the Cawthron Institute, with the forest biological research station under the control of Dr. David Miller. This work he regarded as o£ national importance.

Mr Taverner also dealt with the de« pletion of milling forests and the protection of forests, and paid a tribute to the high standing set by the forest service generally. The Director of State Forests (Mr Turner'), in the course of his remarks, said: "The aggregate area of New Zealand State plantations now reaches 2J5.000 acres of valuable timber trees which is the largest area of State-own-ed planted forests in any one State of the British Empire. Not onlv has this huge work been accomplished, but we can also justlv claim to have applied systematic and business management to our indigenous forests, which, for the most part, were formerly under no management, but sales of timber were made on an antiquated system which resulted in great waste and national loss. "Wo have under our care about 7 500.000 acres of indicrenous forests. This is.n hufre area and m«nv thoughtless persons claim that a laro-p portion •of these reserved lauds should he opened up for settlement. Frem our practical exreriencp in the field here, and. from a study of the forostrv and forests of other countries, we know thnt these reservations contain onlv small fractions of land suitable for settlement, and that were the reservations removed from the remainder, and settl"inpnt allowed, the ultimate wouhl he disastrous both from the njjtio«n] «oint of view and from the individual."