PINUS INSIGNIS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 125, 11 March 1950, Page 4

PINUS INSIGNIS

GENERAL USE URGED OPINION OF BUILDERS (P.A.) “APIEIt, March 10. A telegram urging the general use of pinus insignis for building because of the rapidly diminishing supples of indigenous timber has been sent by the New Zealand Master Builders’ Association to the Municipal Association conference at Auckland. This action followed the reading of a paper by the Manawatu Association, which stated that within a few years pinus would become the standard building timber because of the widening gap between supply and demand.

Most complaints about timber shortages came from those districts where conservation rather than judgment guided the policy of., timber use, said Mr W. C. Ward, inspector-in-charge, Commercial Division, New Zealand Forest Service. Unwarranted prejudice against pinus insignis and other timbers, he declared, was still all too common.

Addressing the conference, Mr Ward said there' were many proven wood preservatives now available -which were capable of making sapwood'more resistant than natural heartwoods against borer and decay. Sapwoods so treated would actually give more reliable. service than heart matai and rimu. 1

“Yet we read in the newspapers only last week that the mayor of a prominent North Island town, in opposing the wider use pf substitutes of indigenous woods' made the public statement that he was against the use of insignis pine regardless of how it is treated,” said Mr Ward. “Such an attitude is difficult to understand, and, however worthy may be the mayor’s motives, if he succeeds in carrying the day, his policy must increase the difficulties of his citizens and builders.”

Mr Ward said ,the federation’s executive had a duty to foster the acceptance of; a uniform policy throughout New Zealand toward the use of substitutes for the scarcer grades of indigenous woods. A lead from the industry, he added, would do much to promote confidence in the use of substitutes. | Proved Strength Mr J. S. Reid, engineer to the Forest Products Division, State Forest Service, said that pinus insignis was proved to have enough strength for building construction. Builders, however, should insistently refuse lowgrade pinus timbers. While present methods of timber treatment were efficient, they were too costly, and it was hoped new methods would be devised.

Mr T. D. Ward, assistant secretary of the Dominion Federated Sawmillers’ Association, also advocated that there should be one authority to determine the conditions under which pinus could be. used for building. While the necessity for such an authority was recognised, Mr W. C. Ward said that rimu had been in use for 60 or 70 years and there was still no uniformity of control. “If we, cannot get uniformity in 70 years with indigenous timber how can we get it with pinus insignis, where the difficulties are very much greater?” he asked. “If you think you can ever get local bodies into uniformity of thinking you are just' chasing a Utopia. Uniformity of blinking among a majority is as far as you can hope to go.”

“During the last five years I have seen reputable builders putting pinus insignis into buildings that I would not put into fowl houses,” Mr Ward added. “They said they had to do it otherwise the buildings could not go up. But these' buildings' will have to come down. We cannot updo the past, but we can make conditions for the future which will lead to a sound industry.” Often, he said, the builders had been in the hands of the supplier, but in future insistence on grade timber should be enforced.