THE RIGHT TREES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 8

THE RIGHT TREES.

TO SAVE THE SOIL-

(By J.C.)

There is only on© voice as to the urgent • necessity for clothing with protective vegetation the bare hill country subject to erosion, with its. destructive effects on lower land. The first thing needful is to pin down the loose soil and cover up tho runways of slides and slips. But even professional foresters do not appear to be agreed about the most effective method of clothing the hills in order to prevent sudden floods in heavy rainfall. A conservator of State forests told the Gisborne Rotarians in an address lately that exotic trees were preferable to natives to minimise erosion, because, while native trees were economic to iwe, they were slow growing. Illustrating this, he gave SOO and 400 years as the ages of some New Zealand trees to reach maturity. ''With the introduction of exotics several crops of trees could be secured while native trees were growing." Pegging Down the Soil. With all respect to this State Forest Office point of view, the speaker seemed to have quite mistaken the nature, purpose and object of a soil protection forest. The object is not to raise crops of timber, but to raise quickly the most suitable kind of vegetation to clothe the unreliable soil and so peg it down that it will resist thfj heaviest rainfall. Exotic trees are emphatically not so suitable as our varied indigenous growth. The conifers especially are positively injurious to the soil because they kill any ferns or other undergrowth and shed rainfall immediately. The I mixed native bur-h, on the other hand, acts as | a sponge and absorbs, slowly distributes the rainfall and prevents the washing away of soil and the sudden flooding of rivers. This essential difference between our native wildwood and fern and moss forest floor and the average plantation of exotic trees should surely be apparent to anyone. But it 6eems difficult to convince official foresters of the fact that Xcw Zealand trees, taken as a whoie, are the most suitable in every way to plant in the soil that has been their home for untold ages. The great value of our indigenous vegetat ion as a soil saver—its groat advantage over foreign trees—is of course its tangled, jungly luxuriance of growth. It does not need to •be a huge forest of masts of trees; there is not need for the big timbers so much as for the scores of small and clinging fern trees and shrubs that spring up naturally in places that are allowed to go back to the bush. Even fern and manuka are infinitely better than foreign stocks of big trees for the special purpose of the salving of the soil.

No Place for the Axe,

Tree crops for commercial purpose#; are not in tlie picture here. The two purposes are i totally apart.. Protection forests should not Ik: touched by sawmillers; that is the great au<l essential difference between a protection hush and a bush that someone wants to turn into boards and revenue. If I wanted to save a piece of steep land from washaway damage I certainly would not. in the light of experience, plant anything hut quick-growing ■ natives. I would encourage all such plants as indigenous veronicas, (lax, wineberry, cabbage tree, karaka, akeake, kohekohe, kowhai, , hinau, whau, kotukutuku (konini), all lacebarks, rewarewa. kanuka, or white tea-tree, wliarangi, kawakawa, mahoe, rata and pohutukawa, torn, whauwhau-paku, matipo, tarata, many co pros mas, all kinds of fern trees. These and a. score more, quick-growing and fostering all kinds of ferns and climbers and moss, would very soon provide a grateful and comforting and sccnre blanketing for Mother Earth. They give her strength to resist the assault* of the rain; they hold the stream banks secure against the rush of water; thev provide a shelter place for the seedlings of large trees. Commercial foresters do not like this sort of "brushwood," I know; it is no use to them. But it gi\-es the tortured soil the first aid it needs a« a prelim inarv to clothing it again with hush that -will in time reproduce the original forest. THE SCOTSMAN'S " BONNET." Tn the eighteenth century a broad. flat bonnet with a largo red tassel, known as the ' braid bannet," was the distinguishing headdress of ths Scottish peasantry. This form of bonnet has now entirely disappeared, but tho "Glengarry"' and other fancv shapes have still a wide popularity, and it forms the regulation cap of British foot regiments. The name "bonnet" is not found commonlv applied to caps till the time of Henry VIII. 'We read that at a banquet at AA estminster the King wore a bonnet of damask silver, flat woven in the stole, and thereupon wrought -with gold, -with rich feathers on it. At that period Milan bonnets or "Mellavne bonnets,came much in vogue. They were worn by both sexes. Hence the makers of female headdresses are known as "milliners." Milan bonnets of the sixteenth century were generally made of costly materials richly decorated -with gems, precious atones and metals.