Forest Service to sell Christmas trees

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33387, 20 November 1973, Page 18

Forest Service to sell Christmas trees

The Forest Service will sell 13,000 small self-sown pine trees by tender to help meet the demand for Christmas trees in Christchurch.

The service has 10,000 4ft to 7ft high trees at Eyrewell and 3000 6ft to 10ft high trees at Ashley. The Conservator of Forests (Mr J. W. Levy) said yesterday that the public demand for Christmas trees in Christchurch was now so heavy that the Forest Service had set aside pockets of land for growing them. Unless a good supply was available from somewhere, trees would be pillaged from domains, forests, parks, and golf courses, he said. The trees for sale at Eyrewell are the remainder of ! those which regenerated after the severe windthrow in 1964 which resulted in the destruction of 26 million cubic feet ' of standing timber. Mr Levy said that the regeneration pattern was so haphazard that the trees had to be removed to allow room for systematic planting. The Forest Service will accept tenders based on a price per 100 trees in multiples of 100. The lowest tender acceptable will be $3O for 100 trees. On instructions from the Minister of Forests, some

trees have been set aside for disposal charitably. The conservator reserves the right to allocate those for sale even though an acceptable single tender may have been received.