AFFORESTATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 10, 12 July 1910, Page 7

AFFORESTATION.

ROOM FOR EXPANSION. REFERENCE AT FARMERS' UNION ! CONFERENCE. Among the subjects of interest treated in the address of the President (Mr. J. G. Wilson) to the Farmers' Union ConTerence to-day was that of afforestation. In this branch of the work of the Lands Department much was being done, he said, but there was r,ooin for enormous .expansion In 25 years most of the timber would be cut out, and the efforts they were making to provide against that time were on much too small a scale. "We have plenty of land," de-« clared the president, "we have the ex- ■ perience of how and what to plant, but we are not doing it. France, faced with the same difficulty, changed a desolate waste of sand dunes into a forest of pines, suporting a large number of people in the various industries connected with the timber trade. Our Government has large areas ,of sand dunes quite close to the settled districts and to the railway system ; by starting a nursery in the district wliere the trees were to be planted, so as to acclimatise them, and »y systematically planting an area each year, it would not be long before provision for the future would be made, and it would prove a profitable undertaking. The cost, and lepgth of time before returns come in, make it impossible for private individuals to undertake this work to any great .extent. The occupiers of sea-coast runs are offered compensation for planting under their lease, but the terms are not sufficiently liberal, and as far as I know have not been taken advantage Gf. £100,000 a year would not be too much to spend in afforestation ; all that has been spent so far is the amount accruing for royalties."