OTAGO INSTITUTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2151, 16 May 1895, Page 23

OTAGO INSTITUTE.

The first meeting of the Otago Institute for this session was held in the museum on Tuesday evening and was well attended. Mr A. Hamilton presided. NEW MEMBERS. The Chairman reported that Dr R. S. Stepheneoc, Messrs W. A. Sim aud John G M Leud had been elected numbers of the institute, and that Mies Browning had been elected a life member. CHANGES IN TIIK COUNCIL. The CnA.iHjr.AN also reported that since the annual meeting Dr Chilton, who had been appointed president, having decided upon going to England, had resigned his membarship of the society, and Dr Btlcher had alao resigned from the council. Consequent upon these resignations the council had elected the speaker president, and had elected Professor Scott in his place as vice-president. Mr A. Wilson aud Mr J. R. Don had been elected to the council. " FLORA. OF NEW ZEALAND The Chairman drew the a:teution of the members to the exceedingly gratifying notification, which had been made since the la;t naeefciDg of the imtitute, that the Government had seen fit to authorise the re-publication of the 41 Students' Flora of Nbw Zta'aud." — (Applause.) So far as that went the efforts of that society and of the other brunches of the Now Zealand Institute had been crowned with success. The publication was to ii.elude the naturalised plants which had established themselves in New Zealand, and piobably it would a!so include a considerable number of plates. The work had been placed in the hands of Professor Kirk. THE FORESTS OF NEW ZEALAND. The Chairman submitted an interesting and exhaustive paj.er upon the "Forests of New Zealand." Nearly a third o? the colony, he siid, was still covered with busb, and reasonable provision seemed to have been made by the State for river sources, &c. There was, therefore, no immediate prospect of the dearth of timber or of injurious effects from clearing for the present or in the immediate future, except a want of timber in the C«nfcerbury Plains, thß Otago goldfields dittricb, and perhaps the W&ikn.to. It seemed to him, however, incumbent on Ihe Government to take early steps to secure adequate reserves for future supply and further reserves for climatic considerations, to reduce waste to a minimum, and secure a proper share «f public revenue from the valuable , wooded aroa remaining in its hands — a portion of which it could devote to replant : ng denuded hillsides and phina destitute of timber. While New Zealand had a Bplendid and most valuable property in her forests aa they now exist, she must be very careful in her management of them, and no longer procaed blindfold in their disposal and removal. He reviewed at some length the forestry regulations in force in other parts of the wor]d, and urged the members of the institute to assist when the time came in auy way they could the organisation of a scientific Government control of all the mighty forests of this land of ours. If the services of proparly-trained men were obtained, and the State foretts well-organised, they might, he was sure, be made within a ve/y üb.ort time to return a substantial net income, more especially as the receat developments iv the timber trade in England seemed to promise a new opening for New Zealand wools, and unless the opportunity waß lost by careless or disboneßb shipping, important results might follow. It was worthy of notice that Eugland alone imported £20,000,000 of wood annually. Mr A. Baihoate was of opiuion that Ihe subject of forestry had been shamefully neglected in New Zealand in the past, and he thought it would nob be a bad thing to make practical use of that opportunity by passing a resolution calling the attention of the Government to the matter, and urging them to establish a scientific forestry department. It was possible that the time was hardly ripe, but the more publicly they brought their subject under th^ not cc of* the Government the sooner would the time come when their suggeutioßS would be adopted. An objection which would arise was that a considerably increased expense would be involved, and for some time probably there would be no adequate return. Still they should lcok at the question from a large poiufc of view, and consider not merely what return there would bo for this generation, bub have some co>-sideration for those coming after them. He had no doubt that if the slopes of seme oE the mountains in Central Otago were planted, the rainfall in the valleys would be largely increated. Mr Hamilton had not referred to an enemy of the forests— possibly because it had nob been brought under his notice — and tbab was the rabbit plagae. The clearance of young trees on tha slopes of the Blue Mountains in the Tapanui district; had, he believed, been entirely due to the ravages of the pe3t. The rabbits, also, were much more destructive here to planted trees than he had ever known elsewhere. He understood that the Railway department had attempted to plant trees along the gorge on the line of the Ota go Central railway, but as fast as they were planted they were eaten up by rabbits, until the attempt had to be given up. Mr G. M. Thomson thought that anyone who contemp^ted the effect of selliDg lands in consider»ble areas for the purpose of felling bush and clearing for cultivation, must come to the conclusion that fearful wasbe went on. As to the effecb of the destruction of fo r e»ts upon climate, he thought the experience of the American department had been that the rainfall had not been dimini«hed by denudabion, bub the storage power of the ground had been completely destroyed. As a local illustration of that, he pointed ont that 20 years ago we h»d an innumerable number of permanenb streams all over the hills in the neighbourhood of Dunedin ; bub to-day the channels of those streams were completely dry for many months in the year. He was sure that was the cate all over the open country west of Dnnedin. With reference to the felling of the bush, he did not think it was too much to say that the Government should be requested nob to sell bnsh at aU for the purpose of clearing. The forests were an extremely valuable aeseb, and, with the enormously increased facilities for a rapid transfer of products from one part of the world to another, we would regreb our mistake too late if we permitted our forests to be destroyed now and ravaged by flre and clearing. There was a small local aspect of the cue to which h« might refer, more

especially a3 a member of the City Council (Mr Wales) was present!. The Corporation of Dunedin had spent an enormous amount of money on the purchase of a reaotvoir at Boss's ceek, where, originally, the catchment area was densely covered with bmh ; but from year to year, as settlement went on, the bush had been steadily enoroaohed into, and the result of fcho continuance of this would be not only that we would have an impure water 6upply, bat that wo would find the storage capacity of the area so seriously diminished as to affect the volume of the supply. Dr Hocken remnrked that in one sense Mr Hamilton's paper was reassuring, for ib showed that there was much more of valuable timber in Now Zealand th&n the speaker, for one, had thought there wa«, He directed alteoliou to the oruel waste of forest which ocourred as the settlers entered npon bush land. The s. tiler " waited for a burn," and, when the weather had been dry for weeks, before, set fire to hundreds of acres of land, the fire going much further, perhaps, thin the settler intended. Ho (Dr Hcckon) really thought the Government should endeavour to direct settlement towards the unoccupied lands, so that the colony mi^hi at prtsant preserve its valuable asset. Mr B. Melland remarked that there wera some trees the rabbits did not interfere wi'h. Ho had tiied larch trees near the foot of the Takitimo range and the rabbits had not interfered with them at all. Tho trees, on the contrary, grow exceedingly well, and he believed they wou'd do very well in Central Obago. The larch was not only a quick grower but it was a valuabla tree when it waß grown. He noticed th%t at Home its timber was now used for railway sleepers, and if it were grown in the vicinity of Clyde and Cromwell they might htve the sleepers on the line by the time the railway got up there — (Laughter.) The Chairman, iv reply, t&M the question of the primary expeuse in the' institution of a forestry department need not ba very serious. Later on in the session he thoujht the institute might have collected particulars to enable it to forward some kind of a memorial on the subject to the Government.