FORESTRY’S DEBT TO BAD TIMES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 5 April 1933, Page 5

FORESTRY’S DEBT TO BAD TIMES

In decades to come, when trees planted in the thirties in New Zealand are brought to market, the people of those days may or may not remember that their harvest- is in large measure due to the great depression (comments “The Post”). The fact is, however, that the Government was against State treeplanting prior to the increase in unemployment, and only the adaptability of tree-planting to the needs of relief workers is responsible for the afforesting of thousands of acres. Search for constructive work which the average man can do, and which is not overweighted with material costs, lias revealed few better undertakings and none more healthy for the worker. Tills winter the great State plantation on the Kaiangaroa Plains will take hundreds of unemployed. Local bodies also would probably lean more on afforestation for relief purposes were it not that the afforestable land is generally in the bands of the weaker local ■ bodies, and the others are apt to be too localised in view to join co-operative schemes extending beyond their own boundaries. Efforts are still being made to counter this parochialism, and to meet the considerable difficulties presented by joint camp plans. It will be noted that forest conservation is starred in the Roosevelt relief programme in the United States.