SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20339, 21 August 1929, Page 10

SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY.

The old argument, whether Auckland or Canterbury should have the School of Forestry has arisen again. True, each has a school at present, but this way out of the controversy which existed some years ago has been roundly condemned by authoritative opinion, and once again the question of one school, and more contentious still, of its location, has become a lively issue. It can be assumed with perfect safety that if the authorities do nerve themselves to decide that efficient concentration must take the place of wasteful duplication, Canterbury will fight tenaciously to retain the schoo) now in being there. If Auckland wishes to retain the school at the University College, it will be necessary to press its claims to the limit. It is not enough to have the better case, as Auckland believes itself to have; that case should be presented at least as well as the rival one. To this end, it is encouraging to find that the Auckland Sawmillers' Association is interesting itself in the endeavour to retain the school. Its members are the men whose views should carry weight. On a comparison, could Canterbury College find close at hand, in Christchurch, anything like a similar number of business men, practical experts in the timber industry, not only concerned in the welfare of the school, but co-operat-ing with it in the way the Sawmillers' Association is doing in Auckland 1 ? In their arguments for having the school at Auckland, the sawmillers quoted most of the salient facts, the existence of strictly conserved native forest within easy reach of the city, the existence in the Auckland Province of the greatest area of plantations the Dominion carries, the availability of subtropical treeg not found elsewhere in New Zealand, the diversity of exotics, and so forth. All these things are important, but i/\ore impressive than any of them is the volume of sawn timber produced in the province, and the fact that the sawmillers offer forestry students facilities to follow the processes of manufacture through all-stages, and; during vacations, to work among (he timber, gaining practical experience of every process in the conversion of forest products. Have Canterbury students any such opportunities and facilities'! When there is added to this the unchallenged statement that the Auckland school has from three to four times as many degree students as Canterbury can boast, it is evident that forestry training is being done where it should be done, the natural as well as the historic centre of the timber industry, Auckland.