PINE FORESTS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19888, 27 March 1930, Page 5

PINE FORESTS.

SELWYN PLANTATIONS. THE PROVINCE'S ASSET, "Great trees are good for nothing but shade," Bays an old proverb, but the many thousands planted by the Selwyn Plantation Board in Canterbury are in themselves sufficient to disprove the literal truth of this contention. The Board plants for profit as well as for shade and protection and to travel many miles in and out. °* the 9000 acres of exotic forest scattered between the Kakaia and tne W aimakariri is to realise what a heritage the pioneers left behind and what> an asset the Board controls in the interests of the people of Canterbury. Naturally the first thing is to plant for profit, but this is not all. 1" must have needed but a brief experience of the rigours of a wind-swept plain to bring home to the early settlers the need for protection for themselves, their lands, and their animals This they provided by means of trees and the more mature plantations of the present day are the results of their work. But they willed that their work should continue and throughout that part of Canterbury which lies -to the nor'-west they set aside odd areas totalling 16.000 acres on which trees, sooner or later, would grow. They grow to-day on over half of that area, and year by year the work goes on of planting more, attending to the growing trees, milling those which have come of age, and replacing them by others.

The reserves were formerly administered by the different Councils of the Counties m which they were situated, but after 1911 control was unified by the establishment of the Selwyn Plantation Board, on which these counties have representation. Planting for Posterity. The field work is under the capable charge of Mr R. G. Robinson, superintendent, with his headquarters at Darfield. All the trees are raised tn the Board's own nursery there —a very fine one—and all the different operations right till the time when tne mature tree goes to the mill are executed by Mr Eobinson and his assistants. By its very nature the work is enduring and continuous, for those who plant to-day do so not for themselves but for their descendants—just as the pioneers did. Knowing full well that if native bush would thrive on the Canterbury Plains Nature would have placed it there the Board, and the Counties before have never wasted time and money trying to prove her wrong, but nave confined themselves to exotics—mostly conifers and gums. The gums which throve quite well in the early days are now a dying race, thanks to the ravages of the Gonipterous beetle and disease. Only two species—Regnans and Obliquans—(stringy bark) are now able to bold thetr ground at all. The rest—many of them noble trees—look sick and past the first stage of decline.

Wrong Species of Wattle. This was not a mistake in policy, for the gums flourished in earlier days, but the administrators of the past havu. left one error behind. In some of the older plantations are to be seen acres upon acres of wattle thrusting their suckers up from all directions The reason for planting then was excellent, for their bark was intended to be as a valuable product for. use in tanning leather; unhappily it was the wrong species of wattle and the trees to-oay are almost useless—even for firewood—unless the research about to- be undertaken proves that their bark possesses a certain commercial value. They are now being replaoed as speedily as possible. Species Planted. Scattered as they are the reserves embrace many different classes of land and in planting 400 acres each year trees must be chosen suitable to the varying soil. Pinus insignia, a species easy and quick of growth, is the stock variety and twice as many of these are planted as any other. No cultivation, is necessary for any of them, but the, pinus insignia just have to be dipped- <n with a spade to flourish even in the poorest ground. On the better land beneath the foothills, where there is more rainfall, a better class, of tree is planted. There oregon, the larch, macrocarpa, pinus laricio, and pinus ponderosa or "bull" pine find a place. These are superior, timber trees, especially the Tatter, known in its native home as the "yellow" pine and much prized as a furniture and flooring wood. In tho Board's reserves are to be found large areas of these, making excellent progress, and in number they rank next to insignia. The policy of the Board is to plant the poorer ground first and to leas® the other areas at- a rental modest but profitable until they are required. If oertain reserves are deemed un-i suitable for trees thev may be sold, but always with the proviso that more land is bought In compensation so that their initial asset may not dwindle.

Progress of the Work. To the onlooker who views in succession many hundreds of acres with many thousands of trees thereon they are apt to give an unfaithful impress Bion. He admires the majesty of their tall, straight trunks with their verdant crowns towering to the sky in search of air and sunlignt; he acknowledges the pleasant shade and pfpteotion they afford; he realises the fine timber they will one day provide, but he is inclined to merge their identity and become blind to their individuality. There are salient featijres of the plantations which however cannot fail to be noticed.

The husbandry has been excellent, for in all the planted areas there is hardly a "miss." The fire-breaks rind fence-lines—details in plantation work which mean so much—are almost without exception well cared for. The extent of the work may be gauged from a reserve near Dunsandel, where - a solid block of 700 acres has, within the last three years or so. been planted with different species or pines. A fine sight is provided by a macnificent stand of larch of 60 acres in the Annat reserves. Three hundred acres of pines are how thriving on a reserve between Hororata and Dunsandel which,, five years ago, was infested with rabbits. Many considered it then foolhardy to attempt to establish the plantation..

Forest Practice. Examples of the successful application of scientific forest practice abound. Where the natural regeneration of gums on areas already milled is in progress, this process is left to furnish the new forest. DnderplanfTng is extensively prosecuted. That is to say, young trees are planted on reserves where there are already trees, and these will in time become the forest. This is what is being done to reclothe the land on which the gums are dying out The value of scientific thinning is ! well demonstrated by a stand of fifty acres of fifteen-year-old pi nus' laricio (Corsican pine) and pinus ponderosa just out of Hororata. They were planted four feet apart, and during the past season . about every second tree has been cut put, while the lower branches of the remainder have been cut off. These trees, in the early stages, must be grown close together, but later they must be allowed more room. The lopping of the underbranches gives the trees fine clean holes and a straight trunk which in maturity t will make for first-class timber.

Damage-by Wind. for the first time for many years ■some of the finest stands hare been victims of the great wind of last September. In the neighbourhood of Brackendale, where the wind whistles oat of the Rakaia Gorge, the damage has been worst. ; It is not. a case of a tree here and there, but the whole plantation, often for as much as half a mile, has been blown down into a twisted, tangled mass, leaving huge gaps except for. solitary trees standing, at intervals like sentinels. How to profit best from the disaster is exercising the minds of the Board. Many ' of the smaller trees ire now being cut into firewood, and an attempt is to be . made to mill the timber trees which have fallen. Of these there are many, the tell-tale rings on the trunks showing their age to be in many cases forty years. ' . . • _ The commercial value of the, plantations becomes evident when one visits the Kimberley mill, run bv private enterprise, and watches the logs being broken down and quickly transformed into case timber, to supply the needs of. the Canterbury fruit-growers. Dressed timber is also milled there. Then the woodsman hewing firewood m shade of the stately pines earns more for the Board than his wages.