WORLD-WIDE INTEREST IN FORESTRY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 15 August 1929, Page 4

WORLD-WIDE INTEREST IN FORESTRY.

The periodical anxiety which lias been Celt for some years concerning .the world's timber supplies was emphasised by Sir Herbert Matthews, secj rotary of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, in the speech which he delivered recently to the Royal Empire Society. In verification of the view that in the near future, perhaps even in the lifetime of the present generation, world demand for timber will, unless a decisive policy be speedily adopted, outrun the supply, Sir Herbert stated that o.von the huge virgin forests of Canada will be exhausted in the next quarter of a century. In Great Britain to-day, of an afforestable area of S,1)00,000 acres, only 3,000,000 are actually under forest. In certain European countries the need for determined action has called forth a vigorous response. In the laist century France has added to her forests an area equal to that of the whole of the forests of Great Britain, and in half that period Germany has planted 1100,000 acres' of trees. Similarly, Belgium has largely increased, and Denmark has doubled her timber resources. The Forestry Commissioners are trying to achieve coinparable results in Great Britain. In a few years it is hoped by judicious planting to change the district round Thetford in. Her folk from a bleak, barren moorland into the largest forest in the country. The method adopted, both at Thetford umd in miainy other parts of the country on each side of the border, is that of settling small-holders in suitable localities, it scheme which has the double merit of providing work for numbers of the unemployed, and of contributing something ,to the solution of the timber problem. So far as can be seen at present, this plan is l an undoubted success, and it forms a valuable .supplement to the larger enterprises that can lie under.taken in the less restricted areas of (he. world