PLANTING NEW FORESTS

Southland Times, Issue 20001, 15 October 1926, Page 5

PLANTING NEW FORESTS

MANY DIFFICULT PROBLEMS. RESEARCH JUST BEGINNING. BROAD SCOPE OF SUBJECT. A broad review of the field of research in the science of forestry, interspersed with suggestions as to what should be done in New Zealand, was given recently by Professor H. Hugh Corbin, professor of forestry at the Auckland University College. The professor delivered his lectures at the meeting of the Auckland Institute. Prefacing his remarks with a rapid survey of the present position in regard to the timber resources of the world, Professor Corbin proceeded to indicate the increasing seriousness of the existing wasteful methods of forest exploitation. America, for example, was losing millions of acres annually —last year, 25,000,000 acres —through fire. As against this, only 1,627,000 acres had been planted as a result of afforestation enterprise. It was a large discrepancy; and there appeared to be not the remotest justification for the Americans’ claim that they were replacing the timber milled from year to year.

Planting broad acres was not, however, the only duty of afforestation workers. The forest plantations must be established according to the demands of nature and the most painslaking investigations were necessary to discover the best conditions of forest growth in particular localities. Methods that could : adopted in one part' may need to be seriously modified in another and the kind of trees that could be grown most successfully must also be the subject of reasearch and experimental tests. All the time, too, it was 'necessary to pay the strictest attention to the rate at which the forests were being exploited commercially, compared with the rate at which new trees w’ere being planted for future use. The methods of cutting must be scientifically

managed as well; and the work in each forest area should be carried out under the control and direction of a silviculturist, in full charge. Over exploitation must be avoided at all times. As to the progress of forestry research, Professor Corbin said that long periods were often necessary to arrive at results. The study of what trees needed in the way of nutrition from the soil was still in its early beginnings; and the forester’s activities must be guided largely by his personal experience and judgment. But, while the actual work of afforestation was in hand, miniature forests could be planted with trees from all parts of the world, in order to test their value under New Zealand conditions, and in different soils. Such miniature forests could each be about an acre in area. And when the best conditions for establishing- a young forest were known the research of the forestry student must be directed to thinning the trees so that the greatest growth would be obtained. That aspect of the subject was not without its difficulties. The trees must be thinned sufficiently to prevent any spindly growth, but not so thin as to lack protection and get out of control. Then, to dispose of the thinnings, the commercial problem became interlinked with the problem of research. The demand for wood-pulp would, the professor considered, provide the solution. Wood-pulp was now being put to other uses than paper-making and the increasing consumption for artificial silk and wool should oped up a permanent and eager market.