SECOND GROWTH OF BUSH

Grey River Argus, 29 August 1939, Page 5

SECOND GROWTH OF BUSH

WHEN NATURE GETS A CHANCE. Long ago, on some slopes of . Queen Charlotte Sound, native forest was cut down and burnt in the hope that the soil would be favourable for pastures. Time proved that much of the ground was suitable only for nature’s crop—trees—and graziers had to abandon hope of good pastures. Thus nature was left to make amends for man’s mistake, and gradually another growth of native trees began to come through the bracken and scrub. A remarkable example of that kind of regeneration can be seen near Mr H. Guthrie-Smith’s homestead at Tutira, Hawke’s Bay. He is justly proud of a few acres of young native forest on a slope near his homestead. Fiftyfive years ago that piece of, country was a wilderness of manuka and bracken. Mr Guthrie-Smith put a strong fence around that waste place to prevent the inroads of animals, and invited Nature t 0 show him something of her cleverness. This she has done, almost miraculously. Birds and winds brought in seeds of native trees, so that now one sees a stand of fern trees, mahoe, matipo, kowhai, whau, rangiora, bark, taupata and other species which have killed out the scrub that sheltered them in infancy and have fed on the mould of their nurses.