THE WAIMARINO FOREST.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4515, 16 November 1901, Page 4

THE WAIMARINO FOREST.

As the completion of the Northern Grand Trunk comes nearer, it brings with it the Waimarino forest and its possibilities. Here is the grandest block of totara —one of the most useful woods of New Zealand —which remains for the axe of the woodman within )te four seas. There are, in addition, vreat tracts of rimu, matai and kahika tea the white pine so valuable at Home and abroad. Thousands of acres, carrying hundreds of thousands of these trees, (containing hundreds of millions of feet 4f timber, are coming within measure

able sweep of the axe. Tho value oi the royalties alone, assuming a regular system of felling and exploiting will bo inaugurated, has long since been estimated at sufficient to pay, not the interest on tho cost, but the whole cost itself of tho Northern Main Trunk lino, This question, therefore, forces itself to tho front; What is going to be done with those forests? Until an answer is given, tho fato of ono vast source of tho future wealth of tho country trembles in the balance. The stocit men. are hungering after this AVauuarino country. They want to chop donn that gorgeous timber, to burn it off with the haste prescribed by a land law which ought never to have boon applied to anything but scrub and fern lands. Tim application of that law to these great forest lands now would bo absolutely criminal. In countries where there aro decent forest laws, and a reasonable policy of forestry, the man who proposed such a thing would bo sent to a lunatic asylum. Most men of sense will add that once there, such a man ought never to be let out, except in his coffin. There is a class of person, settler, agitator, whatever you please to call him, whoso fixed idea is that nothing but stock or grain should bo got from tho land, but that all else must bo burnt off. But the solid fact is that the conservation of this Wairaavino forest is worth all the settlement that is possible upon it. It .i s positively essential that not a single settlor shall bo placed upon that land until tho timber had been put on a footing of safe conservancy. When the timber is done, it will be time for the settler, and then tho settlor will not require to spend a quarter of tho money or tho exertion upon making his fortune which ho would have to .waste, now on ruining both himself and the forest. There is a good deal of earth hunger, no doubt, but it is possible to satisfy even earth hunger at too high a cost. . In this case, ‘nothing can bo done with the timber till the line is finished. As nothing should bo dono with the land till the timber is put on a proper footing, it is obvious that in ' tho best forest country, no extension of settlement ought to bo looked for, except on forestry lines, and none should be permitted. There is plenty of time for tho milk and tho butter, the grain and the small fruits. These will bo none the worse for waiting for tb* timber to bo disposed of at proper value. Indeed, were the Government to reserve the whole area of the Waimarino bush with a view to supplying the country with timber on a proper system of reforestation, the project wouljl bo one not at all adverse to our national interests. There is, a s we have said, inestimable wealth m tho Waimarino forest, and it is essential, from a colonial point of view, that it should be utilised and conserved on a sj'stem most advantageous to the country.