NATURE-AND MAN

Northern Advocate, 6 February 1934, Page 9

NATURE-AND MAN

i “WOODMAN—SPARE THAT TREE.” MODERN “IMPROVEMENTS.” (Edited by Leo Panning). How many lovable trees, in and about cities and towns of New Zealand, have been swept away by the vandal hands of “Improvers?” Some very sad memories were stirred in my mind by the reading of an article written and illustrated by Miss Valerie Norman in “Te Karere,” the annual magazine, issued by Queen Margaret College, Wellington. The title of the clever feature was: “Fitzherberfc Terrace—Then and Now” —a terrace which once had an avenue of hardy pines, butchered in a scheme of “improvements.” “When those trees were planted,’’ wrote Miss Norman, “they little dreamt what their fate would be. How should they know that the hand that had sown them would soon cut them down, for man is selfish and what he wants he gets? He does not think of the lives he is destroying. Oh no! He must have his neat gardens and stone borders, and when he gets them he is not satisfied. He will break them up soon for something else, like a child who tiros of its toys as it grows older, and carelessly flings them aside. “Majestic, tall, noble pines, how gallantly they faced their bitter end, for their death was a slow, creeping paralysis to them, as they watched the procedure of the one-sided battle, and saw their comrades laid prostrate on the cold earth, with the sap of life slowly ebbing from them, and their hearts broken against the steel axe of man. How the last great pine must have felt the bitterness of life as he stood there, in his lonely vigil, watching over the dead and thinking of the many secrets that were still held within those broken hearts; for oven when they were torn asunder, broken in two and wrenched from the world, they could not speak or cry out, or take their revenge against man. Their lot was a silent one among humans. Sealed were their hearts. But they must bear it, and the great lone pine waved and whispered and nodded on the eve of death, as only a great pine can, 4 God gave us to man to use as he pleased, so we must abide by Him.’ Still serene and gallant he stood, uttering no word of blame nor hatred, and slowly passed the long night slumbering deeply and dreaming of future peace. “The character of Fitzherbert Terrace is swept away and all that remains at present is an avenue of miserable, leafless, English trees, growing in a barren stretch of clay soil, where the howling southerly wind sweeps down, driving all before it across the bleak, cold terrace. There are no comforting, motherly pines for shelter now; only a cold, brick tram-shed, for those trees have long since passed as sawdust in the hands of man.” “Give Them the Axe.” Miss Norman’s soulful run of thought reminded me of a similar sorrow which I felt at the sight of havoc near the main entrance of Wellington’s Botanical Gardens in the autumn of 1919, Here is a passage from the lament which I wrote then:— “Here is the crystal sward where Titania and her train —the Pixies and the Trixies —had their carnival last night, and here is the glistening silken line along which Mr Spider went softly and silently to see the merry revels. Bottom is not far away chopping down trees. “Tragedy was happening by the main entrance. Axe and saw were busy with the bodies of pines, hacked away from the hill. Here was a home for many birds, a. noble grove, where the wind lost its strength in a wilderness of song—-and so spared the tender aristocrats beyond. A clearing! Will one see fuchsias there in the shape of a fish and polyhedra of ponyanthi and stars of other plants? “So one turns sadly away by Anderson Park into Wesley Road and on to Aurora Terrace, where joy is restored bj r a late hollyhock, a colour clock telling of the last bright hours of ‘lndian summer,’ as the rose cannot do in these islands where the seasons deceive the roses as they do the birds of old England.” Threatened Ruin of Urewera. Not long ago many New Zealanders were alarmed by the threatened destruction of beautiful native forest in the Urewera Country, along the new tourist route from Rotorua to Lake Waikaremoana. Some damage has already been done, and more destruction is already in prospect. The New Zealand Tourist League is co-operating with the Native Bird Protection Society and other public-spirited organisations in an effort to save the forest. Here is a comment of the Tourist League:— “Any effort to convert these steep hillsides into farming country is to be deprecated, both on account of the damage to the other bush and on account of the probable danger of destruction to roads and bridges in the lower Bay of Plenty, particularly in the Rangitaiki Swamp, where the State has expended hundreds of thousands of pounds in draining and settling an area. Wo are strongly of the opinion that it is a foolish policy on the part of the authorities to allow the bush to be cleared for doubtful farming purposes, where weeds like ragwort, blackberry and gorse may enter and, further, it is important that the Government should not jeopardise its hydro-electric plants by pprmitting anything that may reduce the water storage capacity of the mountain regions and lakes serving them. Wo venture to say that there are millions of acres i of country cleared of bush, which has ; cost millions of pounds and broken the hearts and health of thousands of men and women and children, which should

never have been, cleared, apd would be worth much more to the country as scenic, climatic, and water conservation areas than as second and third-rate farms.” “Protectors Who Shoot.” A well-known Nature-lover, Mr W. T, Hornaday, Director of the New York Zoological Gardens, has fired cleverly at members of rod-and-gun clubs in some verses under the heading of “Protectors Who Shoot”; — I I once mixed with light-hearted sports Who worshipped their gods out-of-doors With shot-guns and rifles of sorts, And shells to suit all sorts of bores. Those sports played at fake “game protection,’ ’ A joke of those jolly young elves! For “game laws” they had great affection; They ought to—they made ‘them themselves! } They railed at the game-killing cat; To the hoot-owl and hawk they were harsh, And they were always ready to swat Every farmer who dried up a marsh. Those shooting “prpteetprs” of game Gaily slaughtered and slew through the years; / And now, while they' are fixing the blame, Their solicitude moves me to tears. And they also share in my vmeps For more shooting-grounds for ‘ ‘ their’ ’ game, Where the birds will assemble in heaps, But without any rights in the same. V I am moved by the wail of the shooter For the game that has been shot away; I deplore the sad fate of the looter Whose victims have vanished to stay. “Breed more game,” cries the sport from his blind, | “Take this dollar-” I give beyond reasonKill any old thing you can find, But don’t touch my long open season!”