FORESTS OR FARMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20188, 23 February 1929, Page 8

FORESTS OR FARMS.

AN AUCKLAND PROBLEM.

UTILISING GUM LANDS. SUCCESS ALREADY OBTAINED. NEW METHODS AND NEW GRASSES [BT OTJB SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.] No. 11. The question whether lands shall he turned into forests or farms is one of much greater importance to the Auckland Province than to any other part of New Zealand, because it contains very large areas of gum country and pumice country which have been classed by one set of State officials as unsuitable for agriculture so long that they have forgotten to look upon them as possible farm lands, and continue to do so in spite of the fact that hundreds upon hundreds of productive farms are t-o be found well established upon both classes of country. It is amazing to find out that whilo the officials of the Lands Department are still doubtful about anyone being able to make gumlands produce crops in the shape of grass and roots, the officials of the i orestry Department have no doubt whatever that the same lands can go on producing crops in the shape of trees on an immense scale for an indefinite number of years. Since it is the soil which must produce vegetable matter, whether in the shape of grasses or trees, it is difficult to imagine the difference in the belief of the two departments. I admire the marvellous spirit of optimism in the forestry people and I wish it was possible to extend it to the officials of the Lands Department.

Astonishing Development. In travelling through the Glen Eden, Henderson, Massey, Kumeu and other districts on my way to the Waikoukou Valley by the splendid highway now being finished on toward Helensville I was astonished at the widespread advance of settlement on what I had known once a3 desolate gumfields. Instead of wastes of stunted manuka, blackened by fires, there are now thousands of acres under cultivation, thickly dotted with pleasant homesteads; there are great aretfs under pasture carrying fine dairy herds and flocks of sheep, while near the railway and the main road are innumeiable fruitful orchards and vineyards, and all these different holdings have been made on gumland. In the old days it was commonly believed that gumland could not carry permanent pasture. There was some excuse for this belief when only English grasses were used and practically no artificial fertiliser applied. But with the advance of agricultural knowledge and the introduction of that invaluable grass, Paspalum dilatatum, great changes have been made. Where the English grasses dried up and withered under the heat of the Auckland summer the semi-tropical paspalum grows luxuriant and succulent in the hottest weather, and when a proper mixture of English grasses and clovers is sown with paspalum and top-dressed with fertilisers it makes a pasture on these gumlands that will carry as much stock and produce as much butter-fat as the highest-priced lands in southern dairying districts. It is facts like these that make me object to any of this class of land which can be ploughed being put under forest.

Proper Use of Arable Land. If forests were likely to prove as profitable as the most sanguine of forestry experts anticipate, I would still object to forests being planted on arable lands. Forests are all very well for steep hill ranges and mountain slopes, for deep ravines and rocky ridges, but the arable land is for farms and orchards where men and women can work free in the open and make the countryside beautiful and productive. To lock up any land which can be turned into farms under silent, gloomy forests is a national crime and a wrong against future generations of New Zealanders.

There is such abundant and irrefutable evidence to prove that ploughable gunalands can be made use of for farming purposes that I trust some power or powers will intervene to prevent those thousands of acres of easy slopes bordering the Waikoukou Valley being put under trees. It is not an easy matter to find out exactly what monetary return can be obtained from tbe growing of trees at. the end of fifty years, but I know that under farming these gum lands can be made to yield from £5 to £lO an acre from pasture almost from the start, and under fruit five times that amount, and go on yielding it indefinitely. They can lie made to carry a healthy and prosperous .family on holdings of from 10 acres to 100 acres, and healthy and prosperous families are of more value to New Zealand than any profits ever likely to be won from trees.

New Source of Road Metal. I have to confess a very strong admiration for the energy and enterprise of our State Forest Department. I have seen ifc at work in various parts of New Zealand and I have often wished some other departments would follow its example. In the Waikoukou Valley I saw it building a substantial road which, had it been built by the Lands Department, would have assuredly meant the close settlement of the valley years ago. There was a most interesting feature connected with this road —it was being metalled with a material consisting of water-worn stones, boulders and san>l. showing every evidence of fluvial action on a largo scale, and this material was from an apparently inexhaustible deposit lying some feet below the surface over a wide area of country. I his material, when laid on the road, seems to set like a natural cement. It costs to deliver about 7s 6d per yard against 21s per vard for the ordinary blue metal, and makes a splendid surface. But where did this material come from? I have seen it further north and the deposit is evidently on a vast scale. Is it the work of some ancient river which ran when, as geologists tells us, North Auckland was part of a great continent. ?

One Family's Experience. I should like to recount the story of one family's experience of settlement in the lower part of this Waikoukou Vai ey just as I heard it when sitting in a pleasant room drinking a fragrant cup o afternoon tea. It began while the Great War was raging, and tells of small beginnings under great difficulties and many set-backs, of lack of capital, and the disabling of the chief bread-winner, of the pluck and energy of a woman and two boys. I saw the middle of the story myself in the shape of productive pastuies and a splendid herd of dairy cows, in a farm won from the wilderness and success obtained in a little more than twelve

years. , It is a story which every schoolboy ana schoolgirl in New Zealand should know. It is not really an uncommon story, but it shows the way for thousands of fur young people to win success on the waste spaces of 'North Auckland, and not only in North Auckland, but in every part ° the province where land lies idle under to warm sunshine and frequent showeis which guarantee success to anyone will labour steadily and well.