BENEFITS OF AFFORESTATION

Horowhenua Chronicle, 11 June 1932, Page 4

BENEFITS OF AFFORESTATION

PINUS INSIGNIS BEING CUT FOB MILLING. EARLY DAYS OF TREE-PLANTING RECALLED. The good results which eventually attend the planting of the right kinds of trees are 'being - seen in the Levin district, in the case of a plantation which is no'W being - felled on Mr .H. H. Becher’s Gladstone Road property. It consists of an acre of pinus insigms, comprising 92 trees. These have been sold for milling purposes, and at intervals the logs are being railed to Wellington to lie cut up- It is estimated that the plantation will yield 120,000 superficial , feet of timber. These trees were put in about -o rears ago .by Mr A. Tomlinson now a 'retired resident in Levki, who, _ eo vears ago, converted rough land into a nursery of fruit and forest trees and conducted it a<s a business for some 17 years. The site of the former nursery is the present, poultry farm and garden of Mr B. Raskin, where some massive old pear trees of the Bon Chretien varietv still yield annually their_ luscious harvest. Mr Tomlinson did a great deal of shelter planting fsi pro-perty-holders in the district in those days, when the importance of thus beautifying and protecting the land, and incidentally providing for a future return, seemed to Ibe more fully realised by land-owners than is the case today. Several properties on Gladstone Road bear witness to his activities. One contract which he had was _to plant 1000 pines on the Ihakara hills across the Levin-Shannon Road, and on one day, 950 holes having previously boon dug, the same number of trees was planted by himself and an assistant. He was liable, under this contract to replace any that did not thrive, but only throe failed. The big pines at the back of the Levin District High School were put in by Mr Tomlinson, and he also planted the oaks in the front, which had been raised from seed and donated by the late Mr James Prouse.