VANISHING FORESTS

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 139, 14 June 1913, Page 5

VANISHING FORESTS

SAWMILLERS' SCHEME FOR REAFI'OiIIfIfeTATION.

A plan by which forest land from j which the timber is now being cut out can be re-planted in an organised way is suggested by Mr F. T. Moore, ot Johnsonville, in a. letter which he has just sent to the Prime Minister.. •The letter is as follows:— "Messrs Moore Bros,, . of Johsonville, are the holders of milling rights from the native owners -of the Puketapu block, situated near Taumarunui,'and covering an area of land approximately 10,000 acres. The royalty value is worth from £2000 to £3000 per annum to the natives, while the timber lasts. Twenty years hence the supply will be cut out,: .and Moore Bros, are willing to re-afforest these lands with early maturing trees in the interests of the natives '.and themselves, provided your Government will pass legislation extending the'term of existing rights which now have i twenty-one years to "run for a further term of twenty-one years. "These lands are specially adapted; for the growth of milling1 timber. The rhyolite or papa formation of the country, together with the natural shelter' from high winds, facilitates < the production of tall trees with i shapely branchless boles. An Austra- '■ lian gum which was planted on this j land only ten years ago is now nearly.) 100 feet high, and the rate at which the bole of the tree is annually expanding indicates that it Will be fit for milling ten years hence. Experts say that Oregon pine would grow as rapidly in the same district; and there are other species of quick-growing timber trees which could be profitably planted. ' . "There are also a number of other sawrnilling firms who hold similar rights in the locality, and who would find it to their own interests to reafforest if given sufficient' security of tenure. The native owners of this land cannot get a better /return than timber will yield them, and the Dominion must have supplies to meet its wants when the virgin forests are used up. Upwards of two hundred thousand pounds have been expended in the vicinity of Taumarunui erecting mills and constructing steel railways for the locomotives, which collect logs from the bushes, and it will be an industrial and national loss if these costly plants and tramways are I scrapped in twenty years because no more bush timber is available. < "I am confident that we can perpetuate our supplies of timber by judicious te-plantihg. The best lands to use are those1 naturally adapted for it and which already have railway j facilities provided for the removal of the timber- from the spot upon which it is grown to the consumer. At i present the milling-rights lands from which the virgin growth has been removed around Taumarunui, are going to waste, growing rubbish, and it is in the public interest to have these ! lands utilised for the purpose to which they are best adapted, viz., growing timber."