LUMBER MEN.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18636, 10 March 1926, Page 9

LUMBER MEN.

CALIFORNIAN VISITORS. A TRADE COMMISSION. "Say, you people don't know what you possess here; you don't know you're awake! You have a' regular little Garden of Eden, and you are not advertising it. You are saying nothing about it; maybe you are wise." In this picturesque language an American lumber man answered tlie parting enquiry of a representative of "The Press," who elicited some facts from him yesterday about the timber industry of California. The lumber man was Air Hugh M.» Cochran, of the Union Lumber Company, ban Francisco, chairman of a Commission investigating the conditions tor marketing Californian redwood (sequoia sempervirensj in Australia and New Zealand. The other members of the party are Messrs H. E. Crawford (Pacific Lumber Company, Scotia, Cal.), H. F. Faull (Hammond Lumber Company, Cal.), and J. H. Quill (Humboldt Stevedoring Company, Eureka, Cal.). They have already conferred with the timber interests in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin, and met local merchants- yesterday, proceeding later to Wellington by the ferry steamer. Improving Trading Methods. New .Zealand is not a large consumer of redwood, said Mr Cochran, and was never likely to import very large quantities, but if there was any way in which they could serve the Sew Zealand trade, they would be glad to recommend any changes which might be deemed advisable, and which would be mutually advantageous through the removal of economic waste. The redwood's history was the same in every part of the world—no insect or other pest had ever been found to attack it successfully. Complete- reports of its uses in South and Central America, China, and the Philippines had been prepared. "Whatever amount of it you take," said Mr Cochran, "we want to deliver it under the best possible economic conditions. We also want to see what you are using it for, and how you are using it." "Do you regard conditions here as favourable to reafforestation?" Mr Cochran was asked. "Yes, very," was the reply. "There are plenty of areas which could not be used advantageously for other purposes. Afforestation must bo economically sound, and it will be so if based on the availability of land that can be devoted to that purpose to as good advantage as .or better than for other purposes. In California the lumber interests set out about two million I trees a year on well watered, shelving, but very broken country."