OUR FUTURE TIMBER SUPPLY.

Feilding Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 119, 16 November 1901, Page 2

OUR FUTURE TIMBER SUPPLY.

♦ <By James Freyberg in the Times). The reckless haste with which the land has been cleared of the most valuable crop it will ever carry is now producing the inevitable result. Timber, recently burnt as worthless has become so scarce and dear that, unless speedy remedial measures are taken, it will soon be a serious question how to house the coming generations or provide material for the wood working community. Two courses are open, first, importing timber from other countries, secondly, replanting our own valuable forest trees on a scientific system. Importing will not help the colony much, as the cost of timber will be considerably greater than heretofore, and the class of wood that might be imported is not suitable for our climate, neither would it be durable. Replanting, therefore, becomes a stern necessity that has got to be faced, and common sense suggests planting Naw Zealand trees instead of the timber indigenous to the north of Europe. Our totara, red pine, and white pine are proved valuable timbers, suitable in every respect to our climate ; and they are the foundations upon which much of our prosperity depends. Kauri, alas, may be dismissed as a portion of our wealth that will disappear for ever very shortly, as it takes over a thousand years to come to maturity, therefore, replanting the finest wood in the world is out of the question. Totara our most valuable timber, fortunately grows with a rapid luxuriance in certain favoured spots, enclosed by a line drawn across the map from Napier to the north of the Patea River; and another line a little north of Poverty Bay, right across the North Island. This favored zone is the home of the totara, and here it grows with three times the rapidity obtained in the South Island. Forty or fifty years' growth in this district will produce a fairly marketable timber. Of course, the trees will be small, but if a succession of plantations are provided, then larger timber v will be obtained in rapid succession. The important fact about totara is that small cuttings, which a boy could take from the trees in May, will produce 75 per cent of young trees the following year ; and if this district is planted by convict labor, according to my suggestion, we shall produce all of that timber that New Zealand will require. It is absolute waste of time of planting European trees such as larch, Scotch fir, etc., in this district. They will grow, no doubt, but the timber produced will be valueless, and never can take the place of our beautiful indigenous forest woods. Nature seems to have pointed to the totara zone in the North Island as the proper spot to establish nurseries for the growth of young New Zealand- trees pf every description, that from thence they may be taken and transplanted all over the colony ; but the key to the position is the employment of convict labor, under skilled men, from the very beginning, as the necessary work will thus be comparatively inexpensive, and really beneficial to the prisoners and the community at large.