FORESTRY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 October 1921, Page 7

FORESTRY

ADDRESS BY MR p. M PAGE. Mr P. M. Page, of the Government Forestry Department, gave a very interesting address to the executive of the Taranaki Farmers' Union at their meeting yesterday. He said, at the outset, that it may be necessary to mention a few points it/ order to impress upon them the necessity for a proper tree-planting policy throughout New Zealand. Our native lorests were being destroyed faster than ever. They were under the jurisdiction of the Lands Department, who had the deciding of what lands should or should not be thrown open for selection or settlement. An effort was now being made to have this right of decision removed from the Lands Department to the Agricultural and Forestry Departments. In the past all over New Zealand certain areas had been thrown, open for settlement and denuded of forest that never should, have been touched-land that was quite unsuited for settlement and woulcf have been much better in . If ?mY utus e i. There was a dearth of buUding timber, not only in New fS? t A a" oVer ihe world > and :it Should be their aim to conserve the remaining timber as much as possible ' bawmillers must eliminate waste At present many mills were not getting more than 40 per cent, of the log content; others were getting-as much as 601 per cent. They could not blame the mill owners for,tins; they must blame the system it. Mills paid royalties on tbmr output, and procuring logs.by contract meant that only tht» very best trees were nulled In future at-was proposed, to ~ make the mills pay, *_ royalty, oival^the milling timber-mi the Wh., This would WaH that everything would have :to be utilised^ and,; would result in a great saving i^l-^nAer. .They were! all famthar witji the; resjnlts Aat,followed the deaiufetibu of. bigftvply Country of forest; how,,tfje storm water^Vushing from these" bareSliill^Jlabjdea the rivers, destroyed>riyerflats, raised the level of nver;bleds^,etc. U&,mas not going to stressPthataspect of question at the pre|»n^ juncture. He was going to speak; iiarticulajclv of the forestry extension work—» phase of forestry that would interest farmers here particularly. They would al! have noticed that the early,, settlers invariably planted shelter belts" around their homes, and in; many cases established large plantations. He was sorry to say that the succeeding generation was more of a speculator type than a genuine farmer, and consequently neglected tree-planting. If tlie later generation had followed in the steps of their predecessors they would to-day have had plenty of shelter belts and plenty of ' farm timber, hardwood, etc. This fact : was intensified in the Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay, where they were more subject to drought than in Taranaki. ! Had a proper tree-planting policy been i pursued the recent drought on the other coast would not have been nearly bo serere as ii was. He would not say " that tree-planting would increase the rainfall, but adequate trees growing over large areas did influence atmospheric conditions and induced rainfall t and conserved moisture. Following rain there was generally a south-west gale that dried up 50 per cent, of pre-j cipitation within 12 pr 24 .hours. ' Proper shelter would ' conserve.; that ] moisture. Then again stock benefited i by good shelter; they were mote com- i fortable and contented and required : less food. If every farmer had proper shelter for his .->tock and to • conserve moisture he would increase the producing capacity by increasing his growth I of grass, root crops, etc. The Forestry j Department was anxious to help farm- : ers in this work in every way possible. ' They were prepared to supply suitable trees at a very low figure. Seedling plants they supplied at 50s per 1000, and 2-year-old plants at 80s per 1000, Most nurserymen charged from £10 to £11 for these. The Department was prepared to advise farmers as to the best portion of-..their, farm to plant and the best species of trees for each particular locality.- . Dea'ing with shelter belts, Mr. Page snid that for land near the sea coast like Hawera he would recommend pinus > muricata. This did not grow as tall ns pinus radiata. generally known, as' pinus insignis, but was a better shelter tree. They must aim at getting a "salt screen," and then they could-.! grow almost anything inside it; It was only the first three or four rows that suffered from salf.; Then the eucalypts ; were useful trees to grow. The timber ■ was useful for all farm purposes; theyl were fast-growing:, durable.. and easily j transplanted under certain conditions. The most useful variety, and one that! would grow in almost any situation in; the North Island was macanthri,. It! was very durable, fast growing, and. the posts would last 25 years. This I was one variety invariably recommend- i cd. The Forestry Department' wanted settlers to get away from the blue gum. ' There were three varieties of blue gum,' one of which was quite useful, but, as ■ the Rev. Simmons said, the only way i in which to discover this one was to prow the three. Those that rotted off, as nosts were the wrong ones; the one j that lasted well was a good one. But :• the department did not want settlers to find out what was good timber that < way. With macanthri they could depend "on "getting good results always. There were other durable varieties, sneh as, malarfana. which made excellent bridge j trinVbers. telegraph poles, etc., and also! eugenoides. Then there was obliqua, j generally known as stringy bark. The! only drawback to this one was that it' was rather delicate during the first 12 months. After that it grew as easily as the -blue_ gum. . : Coming to the conifers, radiata or insignis. would he an imnortant tree in the'future of New Zealand. Douglas fir, known commercially as Oregon-pine, .would- be a valuable tree that should do remarkably well on this district. Itwould withstand a lot of salt-laden gales. He recently saw some splendid specimens of it 60 chains from the beach in the Manawatu. in a wet situation. It appeared, to be doing better than any other tree there. v I Apparently it will do, well in a»y wet place, even around swamp places : where only willows or poplars would grow and whero other pines would not live. It was a handsome tree, and {should, make fairly good shelter. The ■ trees sVmld he Wanted clo^« tocet^er to avoid sidb Lranehes. ■ Californiau redwood would require s"heter for the first two or three years. It was a fastgrowing, handsome tree, and made dm!jibe timber for ic'nery. and 'general , building purposes. Pinus Txmderosa I Icnown in America as the yellow pine, S was fast growing and medium hardy. ■ |-arid, made ■ valuable""-timber. They had planted thousnnds of trees of this variety, ar>.d they were doing remarkaWy remarkably well. It wrmld with-^and unseasonabTe frosts better tliar any other .variety. He j-m^rjit .hist rei"-irk that generally trees should be : -planted ■ close to prevent side-hrnnohing. »nc! stook mnst he kevfc ont of' the pl.Tntai turns. Frentientlv farmers wlio liad plantations! turned fhe:r stock in on '■ rontrh ni«>its. and the mere fact of t7lGir trr^mpiine: over the ground injured the roots of the trees, and that wa* *'-c rommencement tif the ruination of +^c plsntotfoTi. Fpr low shelter.on the windward side of a plantation the

Lawqn flyprup was about as good also provided $ood low shelter. iSi did not stand cutting so well «& Lawson. ihe latter stood «tremendous amount «f trimming, and a* Raakura tk«y hU live fences of it, just as they bad «f the boxthom in Tarauaki. Macrocaim was valuable for posts, but should W planted with four feet between tern and four feet apart. By doiag that they would not. grow side bra«dwß. JL Wairarapa settler had told himtlia* Tm T°hn Pa BO&rowtl. had poH» + »,?F r'-T CleaVer: f ca? «° bott» **»« that, I can supply poles 30ft, loagirow my plantation, m which the tree* w«v» planted four feet apart, as recommended by Mr. Page. At the. conclusion of the address lv *: hairma» tendered Mr. Page the thanks of, the executive for the infoima, tion he. a had given them. Some people" here did. appreciate the fact thattroe planting was a matter to be serioudy considered, even in Taranaki. where forestry on a wide basis was impS cable Forestry^ a matter of g^eat importance for the whole Dominionfid he was pleased to see that the ForWSy Department was now becoming ihZ 'SS^ff*1!.1^-* 0*"1 that «* wI2