OUR TIMBER SUPPLIES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 26, 1 February 1926, Page 4

OUR TIMBER SUPPLIES

ADDRESS BY CAPTAIN M'INTOSH ELLIS

DEMAND FOB SOFT WOODS.

(By Tileiraph.) '

(Spatial to th« "Evenliw Po**."),

DUNEDIN, This Day.

Captain L. M'lntosh Ellis, Director of the State Forest Service, in an address on "Our Timber Supplies," said kauri is practically all gone, and the great proportion of what is left is State-owned. The quantities cf totara and matai are sot considerable, and are chiefly concentrated in the central part of the North Island, The normal life of the white pine resources is not more than twelve years. Rimu to-day is the principal economic soft wood timber, but this timber must gradually give way in forty years to plantation and hard wood timbers. The total quantity of economically available soft woods, after deducting all areas of inaccessible protection and climatic forests, is 2,500,000,000 feet,' board measure. Hard,woods will only function in the .national timber problem as a subsidiary source of supply, because of their general distribution in mountain and plateau regions, and because owing to their normal refractory qualities they do not lend themselves readily to industrial, constructional, and building uses. Over 90 per cent, of New Zealand's demand, as of that of all civilised countries, is for soft wood forest plantations. Carrying in the main immature growing forests to the extent, of over 170,000 acres, State-owned 80,000 acres, the balance held privately and by local bodies, the yield at the present time is only small, though > gradually increasing. Estimating the present population of New Zealand at 1,350,000, the general annual per capita consumption of sawn timber alone, based on average conditions, is . 240 feet; board measure. It is interesting to note that the Australian unit conlumption is only 153 feet board measure, and that over 42 per cent, of the southern continent's requirements are imported, against , importation by New Zealand of only 10} percent, of her needs. A serious forecast,. therefore, of only 19i ~per cent, of the needs, rcents, based on the normal trend of population increase, and on development and expansion of intensive agriculture and of secondary industries over a period of years, indicates that the national consumption of sawn forest produce (index factor) by the year 1065 will be 675,000,000 feet; board measure per anuuui (other products in proportion), and our virgiii soft wood resources trill t>e economically exhausted by the period I&GS-70. It is possible to provide internally for our annual' needs by the application of tried and proper methods,of. forest culture, but State plantations will require to be of such dimensions as to, take over the major burden of supplying raw material at thai lline. At present there are 80,000 acres of State plantations, and it has been recommended that this acreage be increased, to 300,000, formation to be completed by the year 1935. The forest capital of these plantations and of other forests will by the year 1965 yield an annual crop of 700 million feet.