Kiwis Busy Chopping Old Country's Forests

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 14 (Supplement)

Kiwis Busy Chopping Old Country's Forests

"J DONT believe it," said a Gloucestershire man after watching Auckland scratch man R. Grundy chop a 1 2-inch upright in 27 seconds. And he walked away. That was in a Cotswold town where the New Zealand Foresters were holding a sports meeting for the local Spitfire fund, and there were incidents some of the officers would have preferred to dismiss like that. too. After the chopping Sergeant Jimmy Lockett auctioned the chips for firewood, and some of them thought they would encourage the bidding—which they did, at a price. They found themselves with stacks of firewood for which they were expected to pay. There are many New Zealand Foresters at present in England. The first lot arrived in June, 1940, thinking they were going straight to F ranee. Instead, they were rushed to the coast and put to work on the First Line of Defence, felling and digging and covering the ground at terrific speed. Speed was essential then, and the arrival of 160 skilled giants must have seemed like a miracle. They now have seven mills. In the first week all seven were cutting the production figure for the group was 181,000 superficial feet, which they say is "not bad," but not good, either. They have been working under difficulties. "Gosh!" they answer, when vou ask them how milling in this country compares with ours. Translated tha A_ means that they think the methods of the Old Country are a bit primitive." They've seen some jolly good plant badlv set out." T'lev miss the various types of automatic feed they are used to in New Zea-

land—instead of levers, live rolls, breast benches, everything is still manhandled. Even so, the production they're getting already is roughly three times what English civilian labour was doing, due to the fact that they .work very hard and keep their saws in the pink. According to them, the English are great makers of saws, but no saw-doctors. In New Zealand, for instance, a constant stream of cold water on the saws helps to keep up their tension. Here when a former mill owner came to see them at work he called them "real amateurs—fancy putting water on a saw!" New Zealand Foresters think they can teach the English a lot ui seed collection and nursery work, and even cherish a hope that they will leave a legacy of production milling behind them. On the other hand working here is teaching them to be tidy and economical. They cut very close to the ground, and have to clear away all lop and top as they go. (When Queen Mary went over to visit them she walked through the woods to see in what state they were being left!) All the possible stuff is cut up into pit props, the rest is stacked to be pulped for cellotex. Slabs that would be thrown away in New Zealand are sold for firewood. Their reputation for getting things done brings them a steady stream of odd jobs. They've turned out about 20,000 pit props and large quantities of pickets for army revettements. They have cleared new landing grounds for night flyers, filled bomb craters, and even given a hand at harvesting. Now the Army wants a lot of beech for future rifle butts. It has to be felled while the sap is still down, so every available New Zealander is cutting beech over a large area of England. JAIN AITKEN. (In Parade.)