The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1923. MEN AND TREES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 58, 9 March 1923, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1923. MEN AND TREES.

For the caute that lacks aeeietemot, For the wrong that needs reeittaneu, Far the future in the distance, And the good that we can 40.

It is sad to learn from the Mayor of Auckland that "never had there been a period in his experiencee when there was so much deliberate and wanton destruction of trees about the city." At the meeting of the Council at which he made this statement, the waterworks engineer reported that kauri trees on the Council's Waitakere property were being "bled" by some persons for their gum, which process made the tree useless for timber or as a thing of beauty. It is only the other day that a similar outrage was reported from Te Aroha, a "show" kauri tree there being ringharked by som* miscreant unknown. Many ol our readers must have felt, when they read of that deed, as if they were reading a report of a murder. A tree is a living thing*, not only highly useful but often noble or wonderfully beautiful, and wanton and unnecessary destruction or mutilation, hurts any sensitive person.

It ia perhaps not so surprising as it is regrettable that there should be so many people in our midst who are either downright enemies of trees or fail to appreciate their usefulness and beauty. The man who said that the ceat of arms of New Zealand should be, an axe and a matchbox hit a national weakness. Our histpry in respect to native trees has been largely a record of wasteful destruction. To too many New Zealanders native trees have meant either money or an obstacle to money-making. In the first case the timber was to be got out as quickly as possible and turned into gold, without thought of' the future; in the second it was to be cleared off the land with all speed, also without any regard for what was to come, so that the land could produce something else. The very superb abundance of our native forests has produced an indifference to waste and destruction. Note how many farmers in clearing bush have left little or nothing of it for utility or beauty. There is a growing movement for the preservation of bush for various purposes. To an increasing extent New Zealanders are valuing it for its loveliness and the part it plays in nature's scheme of water>distribution. The movement, however, gained strength at a late hour. In the meantime ah enormous amount of damage had been done. Not only had a large" proportion of our timber reserves been recklessly wasted, but owing to the deforestation of back country, rivers had silted up and l° w lands been exposed to the danger of disastrous floods. Another effect of all this wasteful destruction has been to inculcate idea that trees do not matter, but can be cut down or mutilated with as little compunction as is felt towards an ink-weed in the bach

gardenIt would be a good thing if an example wag made of one or two of these vandals in the Courts. If a picnic or camping party that lit a fire tinder a pohqtukawa tree on a reserve or removed a branch to take home, had to pay a fine, attention would be drawn to citizens' duties in this respect. Many of these offences arise irom ignorance, and education can do much to prevent them. The Mayor suggests that teachers should address children on this aspect of "civic pride." Something is done in this direction already, in the form, for example, of passages in school readers inculcating love of trees and knowledge of their usefulness. If teachers are permitted to do so by an already heavy syllabus they eoujd extend such instruction with profit. Every school could be taught that striking poem that begins

I think tlmt I Khali never see A pociu an lovely as v tree." and Lowell's verge about thi duty of tree-planting, end instruction could be given ill such practical directions as the care to be taken of tree? planted i>l one's own street. Locally, the question touches the beauty and dignity of our city and its surroundings, but it in rcajly one of national ira|)ert»Hoe, affect, ing national a»HU and charaoter.