AFFORESTATION

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 1 March 1921, Page 23

AFFORESTATION

CHAT WITH PROFESSOR WILSON. An interesting visitor to the dominion at the present time is Professor Ernest H. \\ ilsou, assistant director of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, U.S.A., who is touring Australasia to collect information and data respecting the trees of this part of the globe. His mission is purely a scientific one, and he has nothing to clo directly with the commercial and utilitarian side of forestry, though, naturally, he takes a keen interest in this. For the past 30 years and more the University has been steadily pursuing the task of compiling a census and gathering all possible information regarding the trees of the world, and Professor Wilson has himself spent 22 years in travel, most of the time in the Far East, Siberia, China, and Japan. After his present tour of, Australasia has been completed he will proceed to India, and thence back to America by way of South Africa. In the course of an interview last week he expressed great indebtedness to several Now Zealanders, particularly Mr Cheeseman and Dr Cockayne, both of whom, he said, had a very thorough knowledge of the subject. He was surprised, however, that there was no chair of “dendrology”—natural history of the trees —nor even a chair of botany, at any of the New Zealand University Colleges. The only country he knew of without a chair of the kind was China; Japan had several. The study of trees was one of front rank importance. Professor Wilson referred to the tremendous destruction of the forest wealth of the world, and urged the necessity of conservation as far as possible. Afforestation was no part of his work, but ho was emphatic that afforestation was not to be achieved by the planting of trees, but by the encouragement of natural growth. He had visited the Government plantations at Rotorua and Hanmer, and was impressed with them, but they were experimental rather than practical. They would show the kind of exotic trees that- would do well here. But the trees that would be best for any country were the native trees, and these were the ones that should be encouraged. Jrle did not think a country could be reafforested by planting. The method he would urge would be the retaining of present trees in the bush. You could have no children without parents, he said. He could not speak as one having knowledge ; he had been in the country only a few weeks, and was here for a specific purpose, so laid down only general principles. Nature was in a state of constant warfare, and in the natural State forest trees were surrounded by a mass of growth all struggling for mastery, and consequently choking the young life beneath. Young trees required a certain amount of light and air. What should be done was to conserve the forests, marking out trees to cut for timber and trees to be retained as parents, and doing away with sufficient of the sur rounding vegetation to give the seedlings a chance. He believed that quite an erroneous impression existed as to the age of trees; ho had been in the kauri forests of the north —now almost extinct, —and was sure that good millabie timber could be obtained in 120 years, and at the outside 150 years. New Zealand trees were much quicker growing than the European timber trees, and should bo encouraged. Professor Wilson did not think it at all likely that there would be any real_ difficulty in getting the native trees to grow if a. really scientific effort were made. As indicated, he considered that the proper place for such an attempt was the existing bush, and every particle of it should be retained. All over the world far too much forest had been removed. and we were beginning to pay the penalty. The study of trees and forests was really quite a modern one, and he thought that every effort should be made to encourage it, as it had become a matter of vital importance to humanity. No further areas should be denuded, but should be treated on tho lines he had suggested, as the natural forest was the best for any country. No trees would serve in the dominion so well as the trees already here if they were given a chance. Foresters should be employed to go through the bush, and to them should be left the, decision as to what trees should be removed and what retained as parents and shelter. In this way there would be a constant crop of timber tn all stages of growth, produced with certainty and little expense. He pointed out that ’it would, of course, be necessary to keep such forests fenced off from cattle, and fire must on no account be allowed to devastate it. That was a great difficulty in Australia where afforestation offered, otherwise les3 difficulty than perhaps anywhere else in the world.