THE PRIME MINISTER AND TREE-PLANTING

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 51, 28 February 1918, Page 2

THE PRIME MINISTER AND TREE-PLANTING

10 TIIB EDITOR. Sir, —The Prime Minister told the recent deputation from the Forestry League and the Board of Agriculture that in the Government timber plantations 67^ million trees had been planted over 30,000 acres. These figures sound large in' tliemselves, and they tell of a good work, but there are more, significant figures behind them that the Prime. Minister did not quote. It has taken 22 years to plant these trees, and the country has sunk £2,000,000 in the venture. * Will the Prime Minister tell' us how ■ many acres of good forest and how many gtooa trees have been destroyed to no purpose during the last 22 years? Are the trees that have been planted calculated, to yield such good timber as the kauri, totara, and rimu that lias been destroyed: Would it not have cost less to have preserved the forest that has been destroyed and put it in order instead of making plantations of unproved timber trees? Is it sound policy to - pull down a good house with one hand and build up a doubtful house with the other? The Prime Minister spoke, about the danger of fire, but that is greater in the timber plantations than in the native forest, and neither the one nor the other is; safe without some .fire organisation, any more than Wellington without a Fire Brigade.—l am, etc., SPECTATOR. 27th February.