AFFORESTATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1223, 12 June 1919, Page 3

AFFORESTATION.

More than 250 years ago John Evelyn wrt>!'": "Sine* it is certain and demonstrable that all arts awl artisans whatsoever must fail ami orase if there w»re no timber and wood in a nation for he that shall take his pen and begin to set down what art. industry. or trade belonging to any human life could bf* maintained and exercised without wood, will quickly And I speak no p.mlox), I say when this shall be well considered, it will appear that we had better be without gold than without timber." The truth of this has been brought home to many in Great Britain by the experience of the last four or five years. Writing in The Garden, of the 25th January last. Sir Herbert Maxwell declares that none of the natural resources of the country "has been so grossly neglected and mismanaged as the production of Umber." He adds th.it "we are at length up against a serious shortage, with actual dearth in vi.'w. or a material which is indispensnMf in every* industry." That we in Nv w Zealand have not in the past rea-u-r,\ this i-s abundantly evidenced by trie reckless and improvident waste or our native timbers which has been going on throughout the Dominion from the earliest days of its settlement and ins been accelerated as time went on by the growing requirements of the population and the increased demand for land for settlement. Warning notes have from time to time been sounded, but they have been as the voice of one crying in the wilderness and have evoked but little attention. It Is true that for some years past afforestation has been more or less successfully carried on. but on a scale which will be wholly insufficient to supply the future wants of the population. Nothing has been done to bring any of our native forests under scientific management. This is largely due to utter ignorance of what scientific forestry means and also to the prevalent idea that our native timber trees are of such slow growth that it is well nigh useless to look to them for our future timber supplies. Unfortunately we have Utile or co data to enable us to determine whether this is a correct view or a popular fallacy, for there are no records of the growth of any of our native timber trees under forest conditions. Scattered through the volumes of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute there are several papers giving particulars of the rate of growth of native trees in cultivation. Mr D. Hay, in an early volume, tells of several native trees grown by him—apparently not on very good soil —such as kauri, totara, and rimu, which had averaged fully a foot in height a year. Mr James Stewart, in a more recent volume, gives particulars of a rimu planted in the Auckland Domain in 1865 and felled in 1904, having a girth of 3ft Din. By examining the growth rings it was found that the tree had taken 12 years to reach a diameter of two inches, but this was succeeded by a rapid rate of increase in the next 10 years, amounting: to half an inch in diameter per annum. These rates of growth are fair, especially when it is considered they were attained under adverse conditions. It is very difTicult to arrive at a standard rate for the growth of our native Umber trees, because such conditions as soil, aspect, and situation have to be taken into consideration. It will probably be i ,ncratly admitted that if a plantation were desired in open country very much better results would he attained by planting exotics than native Ires. As Messrs T. H. Potts and W. Gray, in a paper in the third volume of the Institute Transactions, say: "If our native conifers; are treated in the same manner under which exotic pines flourish the result will be disappointment" Shade and moisture are the natural conditions of all New Zealand timber trees, and no data obtained where these conditions do not exist are of much value in determining their rate of growth. The temperature of the bush is much warmer than that of the open, arsl it is reasonable to suppose that the rate or growth of young trees harving the shade and moisture and warmer atmosphere of the bush will be very much ] more rapid than when they have to struggle for existence in the open. This points to the necessity for the establishment of a system of sylviculture in our native forests if we desire to preserve many of the valuable trees indigenous to our islands. By gradually thinning out the non-timber producing trees in our bush and) substituting, either by planting or sowing in situ, the more valuable species, the "stand" of timber in the bush so treated would be enormously increased. Mr Lecoy, in the 12th volume of the Institute Transactions, says: "By subjecting our indigenous forests to such a systematic treatment as may be actually practicable the Slate revenue derivable front them should in course of time become super- | ior to that afforded by State forests in Europe, especially on account of "the value or the? limber we could «export." Practical forestry has been defined as the art and practice of grovtfng the largest quantity of the most xaluable wood or limber upon the smallest area of ground in the shortest p«rrod of tirm\ but many people in c« josldering the question am prone to lay too much sires* on the last condition and ignore thai! relating to value. It ! Kt satisfaclory to observe from the m emorandum on the forest policy of th e Dominion which has been submitted to the Minister in charge of the Fot jest Depart-

ment to the Conference of Commissioners of Crown Lands that the new department is alive to the need of conserving our existing forests. Apparently, however, the conference was averse from the suggestion that the Forestry Department should have control of all bush-clad areas and the right to decide which should be retained as forest and which should be made available for settlement. This is to be regretted, as it is to be feared Uiat the Lands Department will look at the question from its own standpoint and allow its immediate requirements for land for settlement to blind it to the desirability of reserving areas for future timber supplies and the ultimate maintenance of a larger population by a steady productive forest systematically managed than would be the case with any other mode of settlement. That this is likely to be so is suggested by the recent proposal of the Otago Lands Board to cancel the reservation of a forest reserve on the Maniototo plain of 2000 acres in order to facilitate the subdivision of a run. regardless of the fact that the block, ir utilised for the purpose for which it was reserved, would have supported very many more families than could possibly be the case if it were devoted to small grazing rums. Whilst much land which is of little or no value for agricultural or pastoral purposes may be made to yield a handsome return by afforestation, it is not to be ignored that our timber trees require good land to give satisfactory results (points out the Otago Daily Times). The quality, therefore, of the land to be reserved should not be the only point considered, though it is the one which it is apprehended will weigh most heavily in the eyes of the Lands Department. The selection of the areas to be reserved as State forests should be in the hands of a scientifically trained forestry expert, subject, of course, to the approval of his Ministers, and the areas, when reserved, should be inalienable for any other purpose without the consent of Parliament. II is satisfactory to know that Sir Francis Bell, the Minister, contemplates the appointment of such an officer at an early date. When the appointment has been made one of the first duties of this officer should be to take a survey of the whole Dominion and select areas both of bush and open country, to be set aside as forest reserves. Indeed, he might go further, and recommend the acquisition of blocks of land in districts where no Crown lands were available for reservation. For example, in the Dunedin neighbourhood there are many ranges of hill country running from the Chain Hills northward which, of little value even from a pastoral point of view, might be converted into flourishing forests, yielding employment for many and finding a ready market even for the first thinnings as firewood in the city and as pit-props for the adjacent coal mines. The Otago Expansion League has been advocating for some years—so far unfortunately without success—the more vigorous prosecution of afforestation in Central Otago. Whilst it is to be hoped it will not relax its exertions in that direction it might suitably add to its programme a proposal for the creation of a forest on some of the adjacent ranges.