FIREWOOD FAMINE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 273, 18 November 1941, Page 5

FIREWOOD FAMINE

YEARS OF WASTAGE SMALL AREAS' RESOURCES

(By J.C.)

In Wellington and probably other cities and large towns, a shortage of firewood supply amounting practically to a famine has prevailed during the last two or three months, a period when fuel is needed the most. Dealers attribute this directly to the difficulty of getting labour.

There are few men available to procure firewood and to cut it in sizes suitable for. use. But most householders would be glad to obtain supplies in any Shape or size and cut it themselves. The hills near the city that once were clothed with all kinds of timber, large and small, have all been stripped to give room for grass. The ola generation of farmer put a match to every bit of "scrub,. young timber trees and all. Now the farmer is realising the want of bush growth just as keenly as the town-dweller his need of the logs and blocks for the hearth in the bitter weather that so often comes up with a rush to destroy the hopes raised by a day or two of Warmth. Big Trees Left to Rot Yet around Wellington there are plenty of visible sources of supply on the steep hillsides where the destroyers attacked mountainous country and left it a waste where trees should have been a perennial wealth. Scrub that still goes up in names and smoke could yield a supply annually. Manuka, the most - abundant small tree of all, is got rid of before it attains a useful size. There is a place called "Deadwood" on the hills directly above the Akatarewa River, the western tributary of the Hutt ori a popular scenic road out of Wellington; there the white trunks of big trees lie like so many skeletons on an almost. precipitous slope. They were felled by long-ago bushmen who had to work with ropes for security. These logs canHot be milled; they might be con-

verted into firewood if men were willing to risk their necks. There is plenty of waste small stuff there, debris of the murdered big trees, together with other ruined bush, to keep a town in firewood. But the only use it all serves lies in the tragic warning; the sight of that devastated forest country.

Farmers themselves in many parts, even in once forest-covered Taranaki, regret the wholesale riddance they made of everything capable of being burned. I have known of some who lamented they had to send long distances for the small wood they required on their holdings. .They had "cleaned up" their farms so thoroughly that they took pride in the sight; there was not even a patch of manuka in the gullies. It was all smoothed off in grass, lipsticked land to please the eternal cow. The nearest coal dealer supplied the wood needed for the household fires. But they found that their stock suffered for want of shelter.

I The tawa and rata that once made our best firewood are no longer procurable easily. Commercial forestry mow lays claim to tawa for boxmaking, and as for rata it is commonly regarded by sawyers as a curse, being so hard to deal with, and they set fire to the standing tree. A big [hollow rata makes such a grand torch. , Farms With Old Plantations

There are others more thoughtful of the future than the farmers I have instanced. They have preserved as sources of supply the acacia groves that exist in so many districts, such as the Waikato, as relics of the old Maori and missionary occupation. After three generations, or more, the Australian [acacia planted originally for shelter and ornament, remains to serve useful purposes for the newcomers and descendants of the old families of land users. Australian wattles, planted in more recent times, are valuable for fuel as well as for the bark used in the tanning industry. The thinnings from a small patch of wattle in the corner of a paddock will serve a useful purpose on any farm.

But the town-dweller who holds a bit of land, no matter how small, and who detests the idea of living the semi-communal life in a flat, should endeavour to become independent of the precarious supply of the firewood dealer. Here, where I write, is an example, a suburban

section of not quite a quarter of an acre, on the steep hills with the city spread out below less than a mile away. There are hedges of the abundant shrub taupata, so much in demand for fences. ~There is a small grove of tree lucerne—an excellent garden or orchard shelter. It is about the quickest grower we know; yet the wood is hard and compact. It flowers over several months in the year; it is full of honey-bees just now, and small birds such as the tauhou, or white-eye, twitter in its food-providing branches. Both these trees provide shelter for the garden, make close hedges, and are useful all the year round for firewood. Both burn well when still green. The lucerne is a surprise; if left to develop into a large tree it would yield useful timber in board size.

However, long before that dimension comes, it goes to keep the home fire burning, with a modicum of coal. The ngaio, which is so plentiful on the coast of the Wellington province, and Canterbury, is a quickgrower, and like the garden-grown rata and pohutukawa it can take an annual branch-thinning and be all the better for it.

To return to the tree lucerne, the one pakeha among all these sturdy Maoris, it is an excellent foster-, parent for young native plants unused to the sharp blasts from the sea. Here, 400 miles south of their South Auckland home, are half a dozen young puriri, beautiful symetrical specimens, raised from small plants brought from the PukekoheWaiuku region of big trees. Very few puriri are seen in Wellington; but there are high hopes for these young 'uns; they may some day rival that historic tree on Bombay hill under which Bishop Selwyn once camped, according to local tradition, or that even more historic puriri with the branch broken by British cannon-shot at Ohaeawai.