NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10278, 2 November 1896, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

4- , The question of afforestation is one the importance of which to New Zealand can scarcely beexaggerated.bubsofar no serious attempt) has been made to grapple with it. As settlement extends, the land is becoming denuded of timber, and this must ot necessity go on. Bub there are vast tracts of country wbioh, offering little or no inducemonb for settlement, are capable of growing forests which in time would become a source of wealth to the colony. The State forests of France, India, and Coburg-Gotha are all worked at a profit. Mr. Howitz, a forest conservator from Denmark, in his evidence before the Recess Coramittet on the establishment of a Department of Agriculture and Industries for Ireland, gave it as his qpinion fchab in three years after planting in that country, several portions of the forests would begin to give a return. The osiers planted for b3sket-maklng would be quite available in that time. In six years the thinnings of the forest would take place, and the development of the charcoal industry would begin. In twenty-five years the forests would begin to give their full return to the country. Mr. Hartland, judging from a list of the cutting from nine forests planted by his own firm in Ireland between 1810 to 1860, says that they realised, after periods ranging from' twenty-four to twenty-eighb years, sums ranging from £33 the lowest, to £78 the highest, per acre for the period. That is to say, a profit of from £1 to £2 per annum. Mr. Howitz estimates the probable annual return at from £1 per aero upwards. ' This would mean, at the lowest calculation, £3,000,000 a year profit (from the wood, bye products, game rights, grazing, and all other sources) on the 3,000,000 acres planted, realisable after 25 years. Had the forests of Iroland been properly protected and fostered in former times, Mr. Howitz thinks they would now represent a value of £100,000,000. The most remarkable illustration of the beneficent results that have been achieved by forest planting is the case of ths Landes district in France. This region was, 30 years ago, one of the poorest and most miserable in France. The soil was of the poorest description, and afforded a very scanty livelihood for a few thousand poor and unliealthyahepherds, who walked about on atilts tending their flocks. Now, as the result of planting one and a-half million acres of pine trees, the farmers and foresters by the thousand find a healthy and prosperous existence. The country is covered with sawmills, wood-working factorios, charcoal kilns, and turpentine distilleries. The pines brought health as well as wealth to the land, and ib is calculated that this process, of afforestation has added some forty millions to the wealth of France. Some idea of the extent to which local organisation is carried abroad in connection with the agricultural interest) may be gained from the following figures There aro in France 6500 agricultural societies-, including both Cornices Agricoles and cooperative societies, syndicates, dairies, cheese-making societies, baking societies; banks and credit societies, and societies for horse, and cattle breeding. In Prussia, I ;. besides the Chambers of Agriculture, there I are 7200 co-operative societies, including Kaffeiseti Banks and 407 co-operative 1 dairios. There aro in Austria 1916 , Raffeisen co-operative banks, whose transactions for the year 1889 amounted to , £17,200,000. In Wurtemberg there are 1223 such banks with a capital of £2,000,000, In Switzerland there are co-operative dairy and other societies in every Canton, In Denmark there is a co-operative dairy i society in every , parish; there are 18 gooperative bacon-curing societies, and there are innumerable societies for the breeding and rearing of oattle, horses, pigs, poultry, arid for bee-keeping and fruit-growing, besides the branches of the Royal Danish Agricultural Society which are established in every county. Bavaria has 1751 cooperative banks and numerous other societies, returns for wbioh are not yet published..' ■ '• ■ • The, writer of an article in The Times predicts that one of the most remarkable revolutions in the conditions of transport that the world has • ever seen will be brought about by direot railway communication between Calais and Poking, result, ing from the completion of the great TransSiberian line and its connections. The length of this line is 4547 miles from Cheliabinsk to Vladivostok. More than one-third of the" undertaking is now completed, and during 1895n0b less than 9lßi miles were constructed.*; The line should be practically completed during the next two-, or three' years. It is officially stated that .; there .:'are at present engaged. upon the, work .over 70,000. work-1 men. One of ; - the branches projected [ was » line from Kiakhta ; to Peking, some 600 to 700 miles in length. Onoo ab Peking,' ■ the line could be carried without difficulty! to Tientsin.. A line between St. Petersburg and Peking, with trains travelling at the samj I rate as the Chicago and New' York Pullmat . | (Limited) would enable passengers to cove:

th» distance in about five day», Even at the usual speed of Russian railways Peking should easily ; ; bo brought - within oii>ht 'days; of St. Petersburg, or. little more £n ten days.from'. London. There is, haw. ever, another aspect of this matter. When the Trans-Siberian line lias been completed as far as Vladivostok there will only bo 600 nautical miles to traverse between Yladivostock r and Nagasaki, a,n,d there will be 1000 miles between the extreme east of Russia ami Vassounga, so that if a speed of only 35 verst's per hour is assumed on the railway, London passengers should he ablto reach Japan in 16 days, and China in 17 by this route. Hitherto the shortest route to these countr'iQS-across the Atlantic an I thence via the Canadian Pacific line—has involved a journey of 12,800 nautical miles, and has taken 28 days to Japan and 30 day* to China. The Sultan iis greatly alarmed at th« proposal of the Powers to revise the Treaty of Berlin. A fresh plot has been dig. covered in Constantinople. Forty arrest have •' been made in connection with the 'discovery. The proposed reform in the' Russian currency, winch was to bo on a gold standard, has, at the wish of tin Czar, been postponed. The London cabmen are alienating public sympathy by refusing to deliver passougcrs inside tho railway i stations. This is, of course, illegal, and hundreds of passengers are refusing to pay their fares. The new French commander in Madagascar is resorting to extreme measures. It will be welcome new that the missing boat's crew of the iXiysprirnr have turned up safely.