SHORTAGE OF FIREWOOD

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23415, 23 August 1941, Page 8

SHORTAGE OF FIREWOOD

PLANTING PROGRAMME

SUGGESTED

(P.R.) WELLINGTON, August 22. “In Christchurch there is a conside> able shortage of firewood and pinus in* signis milling timber,’’ said Mr T. H. McCombs (Government, Lyttelton) in the House of Representatives to-day, when speaking on the State Forest estimates. “On Banks Peninsula and the Port Hills, there are areas which are going back to gorse,” Mr McCombs suggested. He said that the Forestry Department should take over certain areas in the district and plant them in trees so that the timber could ultimately be used for firewood in ChriStchurch. In a reply, the Minister in Charge of State Forests (the Hon. J. G. Barclay) said he would like to see the gorse-infested areas planted in trees, but experience had shown that it was of little use planting small areas, because of the risk of fire. He had had many requests for the planting of small areas, but in order to guard against nre it was necessary to plant large area* Proper attention could not be given to small areas of. say, 50 or 60 acres, but he recognised that a great wont remained to be done in the planting of noxious weeds areas in forest. » fire could be kept out of the got* areas, they would revert to native buffl, but the trouble was that fire risk could not be eliminated.