FORESTRY DELEGATES AT LINCOLN COLLEGE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29175, 8 April 1960, Page 14

FORESTRY DELEGATES AT LINCOLN COLLEGE

About 100 delegates, travelling in three buses, toured the Summit road and Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, yesterday as part of the programme of the annual conference of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association. The party was led for most of the day by Professor L. W. McCaskill, professor of rural education at Canterbury Agricultural College. Professor McCaskill said in the morning, while the party was inspecting the Sign of the Bellbird that he would like to see the area cleaned up and fenced off. He said that if fires could be prevented, stock kept out, and the gorse on the fringes of the area sprayed, the native forest could be extended.

The party went from Christchurch to the Sign of the Takahe, the Sign of the Kiwi, round to Gebbies Pass and back through Tai Tapu to the college, where they stayed for dinner. Inspection of Grounds

In the afternoon, Mr J. H. Glazebrook, senior lecturer in horticulture and Mr S. Challenger, lecturer in horticulture at the college, took the delegates on an inspection of the college grounds, nursery and market garden.

Mr Challenger told the gathering that care must be taken in the use of hormone weed-killers. He pointed to a well-established evergreen oak hedge, which had been killed when the weed-killer C M U. had been applied to the path about sft from the hedge. “The weed-killer certainly killed the growth on the path," he said, “but some months after, when we had an exceptionally heavy fall of rain which washed

the C.M.U. into the ground, the hedge started to die.” The modern propagating glass houses at the college nursery were inspected and' the shelter belts and unusual trees which had been planted for experiment and to give the students all-round experience were also discussed. There was a short discussion on the growing of seedling trees and shrubs in pots. Mr Challenger said that although many species became pot-bound in the seedling stage and were liable to blow over when they grew to full size, growing of seedlings in pots was from the nurseryman’s point of view the most economic. “More plants could be grown in a given area and the product could be available all-year-round," he said. Shelter Belts On the way back to Christchurch, a short stop was made to inspect some shelter belts on the college stud sheep farm. Mr Glazebrook pointed to various belts of Arizonica trees and explained why some had grown better than others. One belt, although planted in IMO was no bigger than a row of trees planted only within the last five years. •

The latter belt, he said, had been cultivated carefully and consequently had suffered less from competition with cocksfoot. The conference will continue today with a trip to Darfield. Homebush, and Hororata. Mr A. E. Cooney, secretary-superin-tendent of the Selwyn Plantation Board, will show delegates around the board’s plantations. Members will have lunch at Mr F. White’s farm at Hororata and will spend the afternoon inspecting the trees in the grounds of Mr James Deans’s property at Homebush.