FORESTRY AT HOME

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 25, 30 January 1923, Page 6

FORESTRY AT HOME

CRITICISMS AND SUGGESTIONS. \ - . ' .'■■■'

Mr. H. F. yon Haast, who has,just returned from a, visit to Europe, and . who had opportunities of-seeing-what is being done in Great Britain and France in this connection, made some in teresting comments co a " Post" re.porter yesterday. • : " "The Forestry Department," he said. " took me round the neighbourhood of Inverness, and showed me what is beiiif done in the way of forestry there. I wai piloted through a large number of for ests, some that the Government has ii : hand and some woods and for ests. In that connection I met Sir Wil liam Slick, the .noted Oxford forestr; expert, and various other people.; cori nected with forestry, including the Pro fessor of Forestry at the Edinburgh Uni versity. The two experts men'tionet' , were strongly of opinion that we shouli conserve our native bush; that }\v shpuld not allow it to be destroyed, ai; simply subsitute imported trees for it. " The Government has sent Home ;. number of .promising New Zealanders to be trained in the Forestry Department, and they are under contract to serve in New Zealand when required. When these young men have completed their training and are anxious to come back to New Zealand, I was informed that they have been told that there are no openings here, or they are offered • ridiculous salaries compared with what they can get in other countries. There was one student at Oxford who hadtaken his degree in forestry. He war offered a position in New Zealand at ar absurdly low remuneration, conditions on his passing certain examinations here He accepted a post in Burmah wit - double the pay he was offered in Ne Zealand. The experts emphasised tl necessity of anyone studying forestr • going somewhere where there is a re gular rotation of planting arid cutting At Oxford and Edinburgh, where tin plantations have not been in' existence for any length of time, the students are taken over to France, and before the ' war to Germany, in order to study the „ rotation .which has been adopted there scientifically over a large nujnber of years. These professors doubted the advisability of setting up a forestry school on a university standard in New Zealand, on the ground that we have, m forests here which have been Workin; in rotation for a long period." % '

Mr. yon Haast said that when he w; travelling in 1922 in Arcachon, in, t' ■ Landes, not far from Bordeaux, he. n ticed that pines had been planted f something like fifty miles on" the san dunes along the coast to prevent t.' encroachment of the sand, and a ye; large area of valuable land had tin been saved. The trees were tapped ver largely for turpentine. There should b't a great field for similar plantations on the west coast of the North Island. "Rabbits and squirrels had been found to be very destructive to the young ireei in England.