.-NATURE—AND MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 9 November 1935, Page 11

.-NATURE—AND MAN

WORRIES—AMD MELODY THE WORLD—AND THE BIRDS (Edited by Leo Fanning) Two sounds at break of day—one melody and the other noise. It was the noise that awakened me, the thud of a- rolled morning paper on my porch. ‘■’There it is again—the world and its worries heaved at me—squabbles, arguments, problems,” 1 thought, but happily that meditation was dispelled by the song of a. mated thrush, eager to please his family. It was nearly dark. It was no “rosy-lingered morn” beckoning the bird to begin a carol. Gain, pattered and spattered from a very heavy sky—not at all the kind of dawn to put good cheer into the mind or heart of man or bird. “All the more reason why I should try to gladden my wife and the bairns,” Mr Thrush may have thought. Well, there he was with/a long song, blithe enough to pui miss for a while into the bosom of the dreariest and weariest pessimist. ; I should have liked that thrush’s ‘Opinion of the Abyssinian situation and the planks of New Zealand’s political platform's. He would have laughed, no doubt. He believes, of course, that the world was not made for mankind but for thrushes. In his view, human beings are ’merely queer strutting things that are sometimes a nuisance to thrushes. If he knew what messes human beings were making of the opportunities.to promote-universal happiness, he .would pray "for them. Per imps he was thus praying, in song, when the reports of humanity’s muddles banged on my porch. DEER WINNING THE WAR Praiseworthily, on behalf of New Zealand’s people, the Department of Internal Affairs declared a war of extermination against deer, wapiti and moose —but, alas, the declaration has not been supported by nearly enough “sinews of war.” During the past year “departmental party operations” brought an en c l to only 8707 deer, 28 goats and G wapiti. Add, say, another 4000 killings for non-departmcntal hunters, and the tally would be far short of the natural increase of the destructive animals. A deputation which recently made a request to Sir Alexander Young for a sum of £40,000 for the campaigns against browsing nuisances in the native forests mentioned that “there were certainly not fewer than 500,000 deer” in the forests. Thai, estimate jvould he much below the actual total, which would probably be far above a million. Sir Alexander’s reply was consistent with previous statements of his belief in the vital need of an effective drive against deer, but he could not give an assurance that even such a comparatively small sum as £IO,OOO would be available.

The immediate need is not £IO,OOO, but £1,000,000 if tlid war is to be won by mankind. As the natural increase of deer (which must be at least 150,000 a year) is more than ten times as large as the tally of the slain, who is winning the war? At a time when tlic country has to find about £5,000,000 a year in unemployment relief, it is ridiculous that an amount of at least £IOO.OOO is not readily granted _bv the people’s representatives (Parliament and the Government) for the'saving of very large areas of farming country from the disastrous erosion which follows the havoc of deer in the forests. MANAGEMENT OF FORESTS

A New Zealand forestry expert, Mr C. E. Foweraker, has added his testimony to that of other authorities who have frequently stated that the Dominion could learn much from the forestry methods of other countries. “New Zealand forests have, in the past, been treated like mines,” lie said. “The policy of millers has been to cut out all the available timber before moving on to the next lot, with the result that there has been no provision for regeneration or conservation. Scientific forestry management is certainly needed to control cutting, if our native timber is not to disappear.” He then commended silvicultural systems in Europe, particularly in France and Germany, where forest regeneration had been thoroughly investigated, and where the methods were those of thinning out rather than wholesale slaughter. No such methods had yet been employed in New Zealand. New Zealand has been making the same blunders as those committed in the United States of America for many years. Two years ago Lynn F. Cronomiller in a very important article in “American Forests” made the following statement which applies as well to New Zealand as to the United States of America:— “There are already 83,000,000 acre.i of devastated forest land (in the United States of America). This area is being increased annually by 050,000 acres. Of 10,000,000 acres cut over each year 98 per cent, is privately owned and 95 per cent, of the private cutting is made without any conscious regard to the future productive state of the forest, but nearly all of the cutting on the public forests is designed to perpetiiate the forest. Obviously some new method of handling the ’remaining private timber must bo devised. To continue destructive exploitation of > the remaining private stands with ail the attendant ills of land abandonment would be in flagrant disregard of the public welfare.” “PLANTS, THE YOUNG OF THE WORLD” One of the best essays of the famous Ralph Waldo Emerson was on nature. Here is a good passage: — “Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her own laws. She. keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms and equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and, at the same time, she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. Space exists to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a .bird with a few feathers, she gives him a pretty omnipresence. The direction is for ever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials, and begins again with the first elements on the most advanced stage: otherwise, all goes to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch a glance of a system in transition. Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigour; but they grope over upward towards consciousness; the trees arc imperfect men, and seen to bemoan their imprisonment, root cd in the ground. The animal is the novice and probationer of a more advanced order. The men, though young, having tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated; 'the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they too

will curse and swear. Flowers so strictly belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel that tlieir beautiful generations concern not us; we have had our day; now let the children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and wo arc old bachelors with our ridiculous tenderness.”