AFFORESTATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, 12 July 1921, Page 4

AFFORESTATION

WORK OF DEPARTMENT

I CHAT' WITH LOCAL REPRESEN--j j TATIVE I The/general idea prevalent in New Zealaifid, stated Mr L. M. Ellis, Director of Forestry, in a comprehensive report laid dn the table of the. House of Rep--1 resentatives in 1920, is that the planting of young trees is the chief end of forestry. This may be true of South Africa and/ Australia, but in New Zealand, ; there are large areas _ of puoho forast land carrying mature, timber which is sought after by private individuals, as [well as large areas of devastated forest i laijd covered with young trees (the hope jof / the future), the Forest Service must b cl organised on the basis that all that par tains- to the management, administration, and protection of timber land is forestry. Since that report was submit;t(/d to Parliament, good work has been .dime by the Department, including the ' establishment of a branch in Nelson. In the course of a chat with Mr Douglas, of the local office, a Mail reporter was informed that the Department was anxious I ito see as much planting going on in Nel'json as possible. The main work at present was to organise the miling industry (as regards native forests. Another matiter so far as the Nelson district was concerned was to endeavour to give forests bn poor land a chance to regenerate. There was a great quantity of birch, pd it would take between 50 and 60 years ,to regenerate. Nelson had the second j largest forest ai’ea in the Dominion, 41 per cent, having been gazetted as a State forest, but it would take some time to ascertain approximately the extent of the timber, as some portions of the country were hard to get at.

FIRE PREVENTION Inadequate fire protection may nullify aldattempts at forest management, and generally speaking the problem is a serious one, and without its solution no stability can bo secured. One of the greatest difficulties we have to meet is fire protection,” remarked Mr Douglas, “especially in the northern portion of the district, whore large areas are spoilt every year. We have to fight against it, and it can only be done by educating the people of the necessity of conserving the areas.’T The Royal Commission of Forestry in 1913 stated the following: “According : to evidence given before us the estimate jof 33,060,883,000 superficial feet available in the indigenous forests in 1919, is .at best a guess, and no one can truly i say whether the amount be too much or i top little. Our opinion is that it is not (safe to conclude that there will be any ! supply of moment at the expiration of i 30 years (1943) at the present time, and j that unless more stringent methods are iadopted to conserve the supply as far ;as possible the period of supply may be .even shorter.” Mr Douglas stated that :in Canada and the United States the 1 Governments had stepped in and taken , over all Crown land timber. It was re- | potted,; that the timber would last only j another forty years.

. MOUTERE HILLS PLANTATION’S .Regarding the planting in the Nelson district, it was mentioned that the., orchard industry had been responsible for a good deal of it, as it was recognised that supplies for fruit cases must be ensured for the-future. Referring to the plantations on the Mbutere Hills, a responsible official of the Department stated that he had never seen anything like the growth its that on the Hills.