GORSE SURVEY'

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22050, 25 March 1937, Page 14

GORSE SURVEY'

INFORMATION SOUGHT

FROM MINISTER

WORK OF COMMITTEE ON

AFFORESTATION

The committee on afforestation which was formed at a conference of Canterbury local bodies in September last year is writing to the Minister for Agriculture (the Hon. W. Lee Martin), asking about the progress of the Government survey of the extent of gorse on the Canterbury foothills. While the committee is satisfied with the effect of its efforts to emphasise the need for afforestation generally, it is anxious to "see results from its advocacy of the suppression of gorse by treeplanting. The committee believes that the foothills survey in the Kowai and Ashley counties is practically complete, and that a report has been made to the Minister. The committee is therefore asking for a copy of the departmental report, and to be given some idea of when the survey will be finished. The committee, of which the chairman is Mr H. B. S. Johnstone, has met several times, and it is gratified at the recognition given its aims by the Government. From statements by the Hon. F. Langstone (Commissioner of State Forests) it understands that the Government intends to undertake riverbed afforestation. > Mr P. R. Climie, secretary of the Canterbury Progress League, which provides the committee's office, stated yesterday that the committee would be represented at the conference on afforestation called by the Government, to be held in Wellington on April .2.