TREE-PLANTING AT QUEEN TOWN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10755, 20 March 1897, Page 6

TREE-PLANTING AT QUEEN TOWN.

MB L. HOTOP'S PLANTATION,

" TANBACH."

(By Our Wakatipu Correspondent.) Mr L. Hotop, who counts with the eari, pioneera. of the district, also ranks as one oi the moßfc active and public spirited members of our community. He has served in ir~3y capacities, with beneSt to the public and honour and credit to himsslf. Queenstown has honoured him as its mayor upon repeated* occasions, and he has been busy on the school and several other committees. It w^s while member of the Queenstown School Committee that he initiated and introduced Arbor D-y two year 3 prior to auy town in Otago, and to the townspeople of Qaaeustowu belong the honour of having taken up the movement bafore any other town in Otago, Queenstown being, I believe, the second town in New Zealand catching at the idea. With equally good taste and judgment Mr Hotop fixed upon the hill face over-looking Queeustown, immediately opposite the bay, for tne scene of operations.- Already the young firs are a conspicuous feafcute in toe landscape, aod in a few years more the plantation will have grown into a forest that will present a very pleasing and impressive appearance to tourists as they arrive by the steamer. Having, always had a. pur.chant for treeplanting, Mr Hotop about 10 years ago couceived the idea ot planting an 80-acre paddock, situated ujjon tUe eastern terrace overlooking 1 Queenstown and the lake, with fcreiib trees, 1 the land being especially adapted for s, park. ! An undulating hill sidling furrowed by creeks [ aud gullies and broken here and there by rocky knoiis and precipices required only being clothed with trees to convert it into a park of I grsat attractiveness. | The situation in itself calls for special nieuj tion. From several of the promontories which abound on the ground views may be had that rival any in New Zealand. You see Lake Wakatipu divided into three large sheets of water. To the sou>;h stretches in one long i defile, the Kingston arm, flanked oo tue right j by the wonderfully c*rv«d 'precipices of the Romarkables, whiln on the left the castellated Cecil Peaks, the Jane aud the other p^akri of I the torn and rugged Eyre Mountains incite the. j imagination to flights of fancy into the realms jof romance aud witchery. At your very fast, 1 ami extendiug east t lies the Franktoa arui, where tne lake empties by the rapids into the Kuwarau. Here, hemmed in by the northern slopes of the Remarkabtes and Q'leenstowu Hill, the view is bounded in the tar distance by the Crown R^nge and its famed terracs, while in the middle distance lies Fraoktou and its hospital, the home station of what ouca was Boyse's run aud other points of interest. Between the Kingston and the Franktou arms ot the lake wiuds in mighty sinuosities Boyle's Peninsula Hire some huge sea, serpent. To the west the middle bend or' Lake Wakatipu c-pbds a magnificent view into the very heart of"the rocky ramparts that crowd round the lake. In a sweep of view of nob Jess than 30 miles in extent are arranged in diminishim; succession the piled-up • records o£ the convulsions and disturbances that makes fcho Southern Alps oE New Zealand on<e of the wonderlands of the world. Near at hand up on the right Ben Loinocd rears its graceful peak with the calm dignity of lofty superioriry over the lesser crumbling giants near it. In thfc rnidfit of the towering ruins of a long past •.« now springing up a new life ot peace and quiet, evidences of which lie immediately before yaw. where Queen3towu, with its sfcraigli!. ;-.n<i regular streets, gives promise of a new order of things and of the dawn, oi a new time. 'She park occupying the peninsula forming Qu«t:astown Bay, the gardens that surround the town, the well-ordered reads—all apeak of & beginning the purport of which cannot be taiatfclcen.

So much by way of digression, but as the object of this article io a practical one wo must

I return to our subject. Although a. great deal | hss been achieved in the tcee-pUnting lina by ; Mr Hotop, ifc was not attained without pernei verance and energy. Three times failure de- ■ feated the planting out of trees, but a.t laat j with proper preparation of thfi ground and mors ! sare in setting out the young trees success was ; attained, and after yearn of cocstanfc assiduity , and care Mr Hotop 1ou!:b upon his plantation jas one of the best invaatments is>) haa ever ■ made, and is more than s-vtisiiod with the I manner in which the tree* are coming ou. | It wss found that seedlings procured from i other places did not do very well, and early in Jthe experiment Mr Hotop Uid out

EXTENSIVE SUUSEEIES in suitable situations, all of which have dons much in stocking the ground with trees of a st-ioug and healthy growth. Sowing and planting out is going on all the time, although the gums hays begun to seed aud propagate themselves. Hitherto it was a preconceived notion that gums would grow only round the borders of tho laicc, but Sir Hotop has proved that they do equally well up to an altitude of at least 600 ft above the level of the lake,.

There are cow on tiia estate 15,000 gum trees that may lie considered our. of their infancy, and which are well rooted and hesltliy ; 20001areb.es, 500 ash, 500 silver birch. 2000. sycamores, 5000 pines, poplars, willows, &c. Spanish chestnut, hazel, .irifl obher forest w.d fancy trees are doing- equally well. The tress pleated out are beginning to make a suow, aud when the spurs and knolls stand out against the' sky they are quite a pleasing feature in the landscape. If they continue to prosper as they have begun in this and other instances Queenstown will soon be able to bossb of its forests raised by the energy of its citizens.

As to the purely practical value oc fcreeplanting, it may be mentioned that gum tree 3 have been cut down in tuo neighbourhood of Queenstown that gave two and a-half cords of firewood, which, valued at 34s psr cord, the ruling price, gives a money value ef £4 ss— quite an appreciable item.

Referring to Mr Hotop's individual effort, it must be explained thai he did not make treeplanting his sole occupation, and whatever care an-' st-tor.tion he devoted to it was done in his sp-.r- time, he having his busiuess in Queenstown ;.u atttsnd to every day. In his tree-planting enthii!i:».sni, hower, he was ably and actively assisted by Mr Thomas Mantle, whose advice and aid Mr Hctop acknowledges with grateful recogmti<^>.

Cnmpariug what has been done by private enterprise in the neighbourhood of Qaeeuatown in the tree-planting lice with, what has been achieved by tho efforts of our Government ia this direction, the balance of the evidence ism favour of private enterprise, in which enterprise Mr Hotop's efforts take a conspicuous place.

The plantation, which h christened "Tanbach," after.Mr Hotop's native place, abuts ■upon the Franktou—that is to say, the main road from Duucdin to Qaesnstown—and is easily accessible from several other points.