THE TREES OF ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 43, 20 February 1926, Page 14

THE TREES OF ENGLAND.

AFFORESTATION MOVEMENT. SPREADING IN THE COUNTIES. OAK AND ELM ODTBIVALLED. When- Drake and Nelson manned the "bulwarks of England" it was upon the sturdy English oak that they and their men and our national safety depended. Oaken beams have weathered the passing of centuries better, in many cases, than atone work; they resisted the fire of London, and they still take the strain of many a building famed for its age, its history, and its mellowed beauty. The oak and its tall and stately sister, the elm, have made the English countryside .what it is; the two have grown in the main without assistance from the English race; and their bountiful supply of timber has always been sufficient to meet all needs, and the number of mighty oak trees in which members of ..the Royal and unfortunate House of Stuart are reputed to have sheltered from the Roundheads are constantly : encountered throughout the Western '. and Midland shires. The <oak and elm ; might well replace the lion and the uniI corn as the twin supporters of Britain's arms; the songs in praise of the oak— not so rare as those lauding the elm — might be multiplied a hundred times without an excess of justice; yet in these days the people in this country who can tell one tree from another spare little thought to either of these upstanding friends of England, and are all for embracing more or less alien growths sucß as the Douglas fir, the Japanese larch, the Corsican pine, and the Sitka spruce. True, the cultivation of these x last-named trees is one of the least unpleasant manifestations of commercialism; but commercialism it is, for the demand for such timbers is great, and, for various reasons, - dependence upon the oak and elm exists no. longer. A Profitable Investment. , Meanwhile the forestry movement in" England has sound Government backing and is steadily making progress. Lectures, surprisingly 'well attended, have been held in all rural parts of the country, from Somerset and Hampshire in the south to Cumberland in the north, and from Wales in the.west to Norfolk. The landowner with timber on his land ' has generally regarded its presence as a benevolent act of Providence, to be realised as an-asset when the need has 1 arisen, but in no sense requiring attention like a list of stock market quotations. He has had to be told in many cases that afforestation can be made into a steady and "profitable investment,; providing that adequate allowances are: made for upkeep. The Royal English ; Arboricultural Society have done and ■ are doing much. _ valuable propaganda ! and educational work in regard to the ! cultivation of timber; their speakers I realise that they are performing ' a J national service, and they know that ! their aim can be best achieved by emphaj sising its financial advantages to the ! present . unsentimental generation of landowners. In any case it would be i useless to preach on behalf of 'slow-. i growing timber; therefore they concentrate upon' the monetary returns that result frdm planting rapidly-growing trees and in removing, the encrusted prejudice of an earlier generation against finking cash in such an investment. - . Short Rotations. The president of the Arboricultuial Society, Mr. Leslie 8. Wood, has found the rising generation of land owners - capable of being convinced, by the spectacle of the fast-growing plantations which it sees growing up. Many ofthese plantations consist of the conifers already referred to —the Douglas fir, the Silka spruce and the like. Mr. Wood points out that'these trees grow in size and increase in value at a very rapid rate, and,.although the rate of growth will decrease as the'tree matures/ there •will be a profitable market for them long before the rate of growth drops below the normal Tate of interest. The young . land owner of to-day, who is interested in his woods, does not think of long rotations, nor does he use that old expression of "ripe" timber which denotes the state immediately preceding decay, when gTowth has stopped. He speaks !of short rotations and of the profitable [period of growth, and he-is quite pre- ] -pared to cut at 30 or 40 years and start ' again if he sees the opportunity of a j good return. He sees no reason why j old timber should be left to decay if he j can fell it and invest part of the'nionev j in replanting with rapidly-growing tree's . and invest that balance in Government securities to bring in a better annual I return than the old timber. He is not ! hampered with compound interest I theories, and he does not find it neeeeI sary to call upon his trustees to find ; the capital for planting or to sell out his I own securities; but if the proceeds of i the sales of old timber are insufficient :to finance' the planting work he is pre- \ pared to find the balance out of curren funds. He optimist; he is no worried by bad planting seasons, insect pests or diseases, not even by labour , difficulties; his sole trouble is the ; rabbit. On some estates rabbits have ' j been so far eliminated that it is possible to plant without wire netting, but generI ally speaking the rabbit has a strong i hold in the country and is a source of serious loss to the forester. From the broad point of view the forestry movement is a national asset. Fallow ground is employed to produce wealth; a healthy if not a wealthy form of occupation is provided for the rural worker; the natural growth of the trees makes essential the further em- | ployment of labour; and a number of ; subsidiary industries connected with ; hauling and felling and the use of timj ber are created or stimulated.