[ESTABLISHED 1875.] Manawatu Daily Times The Oldest Manawatu Journal. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913. LESSONS LEARNED ELSEWHERE.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1867, 11 March 1913, Page 4

[ESTABLISHED 1875.] Manawatu Daily Times The Oldest Manawatu Journal. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913. LESSONS LEARNED ELSEWHERE.

Sir Rider Haggard has been casting an observant eye over the country through which he has been travelling. He has observed the way in which New Zealand has been denuded of its native bush, and his considerable experience in other countries enables him to apply lessons learned elsewhere to New Zealand. It would be well if those in authority would not treat his words lightly. Sir Rider Haggard was selected as a member of the British Afforestation Commission of 1910. He certainly can speak with authority; his observations deserve greater consideration than those of the casual comer who seeks cheap advertisement by wooing the trusting interviewer. "Everywhere," Sir Rider Haggard told a Wellington journal, "I have seen examples of the evil wrought by ruthless destruction of forests. I have seen rivers, small streams, running shallow in a wide shingle bed, where, I am informed, the river was formerly confined within a much narrower bed. In some cases I believe rivers which were once navigable are not so now, owing to this erosion of the banks and the spreading of the bed. I have seen hillsides scarred, where the soil, denuded of the protecting trees, has not held. Already (and he has seen scarcely any of the worst examples in the North Island) I have seen rough patches of ground which apparently cannot be cultivated, stripped of trees, or left with the I fired trees rotting on the ground. I appreciate the necessity for getting rid of trees in order to get land into production, but why not save the rough patches?" Trees. Sir Rider Haggard says, do not attract rain as is commonly supposed but they hold moisture in suspense until it finds a natural outlet slowly. Forests also act as a shade to prevent too rapid evaporation of moisture required by the soil. On the other hand, rain falling on treeless hillsides, courses down the slopes as off a roof, and there is erosion. The water reaches the river valleys too rapidly for the j stream to carry the flow within its banks, and the banks are torn away, and the stream bed filled up. Sir Rider Haggard turns to experiences |of other countries. "They are feeling the effects of denudation in Cyprus very sorely,'' he says. '' The Turk wrought irreparable damage in Cyprus; every available tree was cut down, and now they are working labouriously to repair the damage and restore the spoiled forests. They have protected certain districts and 1 I believe that the young trees are | now growing. In Borneo, too, th«y awoke some forty years ago to the fact that the teak forests were disappearing, and they have been so successful in preserving and renewing them that I understand now the supply of teak will never vary. With the example of other countries to follow, you can still do a great deal here.''