“APPALLING WASTE”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10846, 11 March 1921, Page 5

“APPALLING WASTE”

OF NEW ZEALAND TIMBER DOMINION'S “STARK, BURNT TRUNKS.” AN EXPERT’S - OPINION. Professor Ernest H. Wilson (assistant director of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, U.S.A.), who leaves by the Moevaki this morning for Tasmania, has covered a great deal of ground, and pretty thoroughly investigated forest conditions during his few weeks’ stay in the Dominion. Landing at Auckland, he first took a trip to North Auckland district in order to see the kauri pine in its native habitat and under the best conditions, visiting among other kauri forests that known as Trounson’s National Park, beyond Dargaville. Professor Wilson speaks most enthusiatically of the kauri as a timber tree, and greatly deplores the waste and destruction that has taken place, and is in a measure still taking place, in our kauri and other native forests. Coming back to Auckland, Professor Wilson went to Rotorua to see the wonders of the Hot Lakes district pnd the great State plantations, and' thence he came through to Wellington. Next, accompanied by Captain Mclntosh Ellis (Director of Forests), of whom both as a forest expert and as a man he speaks most highly, he made a forest-inspection tour of the South Island, visiting Christchurch, Hanrner Springs, Dunedin, Queenstown, Invercargill, and the Bluff. Going thence across Southland to Musselborough, he doubled back to Christchurch and across Arthur’s Pass to Otira and Hokitika, and then travelled north by the usual route through the Buller Gorge to Nelson. “AWFUL DESTRUCTION.” Professor Wilson, who arrived in Wellington yesterday morning from Nelson, was interviewed in the afternoon by a “Times” representative, to whom he detailed his itinerary. “You will see,” he said, “that, for the short time I have been here, I have travelled over a good bit of New Zealand, and that I have been able to do so is thanks to the facilities and the courtesies extended to me by your State Forestry Department.” “The thing that has appalled me,” added . Professor Wilson—“pardon the language, but T am speaking just as I feel, is the awful waste, the awful destruo tion of timber that has gone on, and is still going on, throughout your country. lam appalled and shocked. I cannot find words to adequately, express how I feel about this awful waste of the country’s heritage. Your forests here could J>e, and should be, your greatest sources of national wealth, and the way they have been destroyed almost leaves me speechless. Except on the Canterbury Plains, where there never were any trees, I don’t think that, with the. possible exception of about twenty~miles in the Buller Gorge, I have been out of eight of stark, burnt trunks the whole time I have been in New Zefhand. The destruction has been so senseless, too. I don't know what the people can be ai. They don’t want to destroy their country, surely; but if they really meant it and set out to destroy their country they could not be succeeding better. That is the horrii ble »part of it. Of course, in the case of good agricultural land, where that has forest on it, the trees will have to go. There is not one of. us, however great a lover of trees he may be, hut recognises that. But the timber ought to be marketed. What appals me is that the mountain-tops and rough hilly country, that will never be fit for agriculture, or anything else but timbergrowing, have all been burnt over. That is the Worst of it. And what is the result but an impenetrable thicket of gorse, and bramble, and so on. I have seen land that would not feed a sheep to five acres cleared of thousands of pounds’ worth of timber. It will not even feed a sheep to five acres-for more than four or five years. It is bound to go hack after a few years. As soon as what little foodstuff there is in the soil is exhausted, that is the end of it. SOIL WASHED INTO SEA. “As often as not, moreover, the rain washes the soil away into the sea, filling up your harbours. That is what is going on all -the time. It is not merely the timber that is being destroyed, the country is being destroyed as well. . Already you have destroyed the .balance of nature, and are getting every pest in the world here. It la going to cost you millions simply to control the peats. You have introduced all sorts of things from Europe for sentimental reasons, and they have simply gone wild. «There are, for instance, tho rabbit, and the gorse. That is the thing that has appalled me all through; and if this destruction continues at the rate that it has been going on for the last fifty years, it doesn’t seem to me that, commercially speaking, you will have any timber left in twentyfive years’ time. The timber in your forests, of course, should only be used for the ’ benefit of the people, not abused. Whore we find fauls with the people is not for using the timber, not for clearing agricultural land, but for abusing the timber and destroying the bush on land that is no good for anything else. The present system of going through a forest, taking out all the best of it and setting fire to the rest, is most wasteful. KILLING THE SOIL. “You destroy not only what timber is left on the ground, but also the possibilities of the soil for growing another timber crop. You kill the soil, and that is a most serious matter, the most serious of all.” Professor Wilson explained, as reported elsewhere, that he meant hy this destroying the bacteria in the soil, which form nodules on the roots of our native conifers, similar to the bacteria nodules on pears, beans, clover, and other legumens, and thus materially assist the growth of the trees. “No one,” the professor went on to say, “will dispute the fact that you cannot have both, forests and fires. That is agreed; but, unless something can be done to Btop this wanton destruction by fire, you may well give, up all hope of having forests of any commercial value in New Zealand. 1 must confess Ido not see how it is to be stopped. Of course, public sentiment will help to check it; but it seems to me that stringent fireprotection laws, with heavy penalties attached, will have to be passed and very strictly enforced. You cannot have both fire and forests. First decide what you want. If you want a bonfire, then, all right, carry on. But if ydu want timber, then you have get to stop the fires. You have got here one of the most beautiful countries in the world; an equable climate — a white man’s climate in every sense of the phrase; a country and a climate beautiful beyond words; and yet, through thoughtlessness or what not, j'fiu, seem to be doing your, best Jj> dea-

troy both your country and your climate. I a<m sure that that is not what New Zealanders intend to do; that it is simply through ignorance and carelessness that they are going on in this way. But, whether it is done in ignorance or of aet purpose, the result is the same.” Professor Wilson spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty and of the potential commercial value of the New Zealand native bush; and declared that “Use, not abuse, the bush,” should be the motto of every patriotic New Zealander,