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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 28 December 1926, Page 10

A monster kauri log, put through the break-down this week at Auckland by * the Kauri Timber Company, worked out , at 10,475 superficial feet of timber, and the whole tree from which it came con-

tained 60,564 ft of millable timberenough to build a row of houses. “It is , the biggest log in New Zealand to-day,’’ said Mr J. Butler, managing director of the company. After growing for fifteen hundred years or so, this monarch of the forest reached giant proportions, and lately (savs the “Star”) the buttlog, the 'one nearest the ground, was put through the saw, turning out as fine a lot of timber as the company has ever handled. When felled, the tree was 48ft long by 43ft in girth, containing about 66,564 ft of millable timber, which at the present price of kauri, works out 'at about £2OOO for the value of the one tree. It will give some idea of the way this big log stands out if we say that the average kauri tree in such a bush would -contain about 2000 superficial deet, of timber. This magnificent tree of exceptional proportions was cut into four logs, of which two have already been sawn up, the third is now in the tide at the company’s booms in Freeman’s Bay, and the fourth is the one that was put through the saw this morning. Measuring 13 feet in length by some Bft 6in square, it contains over ten thousand feet of board, a superficial foot being twelve inches wide by twelve inches long and one inch thick. This one log contains enough timber to build a cottage, and the whole tree would build a row of six modern bungalows. This glorious tree grew in the Kauaeranga bush, Thames, now the principal scene of- the company’s operations. It took something like three hours’ work with a twelve-foot cross-cut saw before he bowed his grand old head. Mr Faithful savs there are even bigger trees still in the forest where this one came from. This will surprise many people, who thought the day of the kauri giants was over.