BIG MONEY IN THE BUSH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 48, 21 October 1912, Page 6

BIG MONEY IN THE BUSH.

MAIN TRUNK TIMBER. In a recent issue of the Wanganui Chronicle fhe railway returns for the mills of! the Main ! [Think were given, special reference being made to the great advance of Ohakune, which with its 19,500,000 feet of timber railed for the twelve months ended March 31st last, gives it great prominence and entitles it to rank as the foremost exporting area in New Zealand. A correspondent to the Auckland Weekly News estimates that the production and haulage of the year’s - output entailed an expenditure of over £48,000 in wages, and that 300 men are employed in the hulls concerned. The sum paid hy tho millers to tho Railway Department for freight alone would amount to about £30,000 for the year. In addition to this, the Department would benefit greatly by the amount paid by millers for the right to construct and use timber sidings. There are timber areas in New Zealand as yet untouched, which would yield about 20,000,000 ft. per annum if they wore opened up by railways, and the total , cost of the lines would not- amount to a great deal more than the revenue derived from the timber traffic alone during two or three years. In fact, the expenditure of about £30,000 on a railway would make available a very large area of timber country near Raetihi. Rangataua (only throe miles from Ohakune) accounted for an export of over 11,000,000 ft; so that no less than 30,000,000 ft of timber was milled in a very small area during a period of 12 months. Yet there arc areas practically untouched which would, if made available, yield even a greater quantity than that mentioned. A railway from Ohakune to Pipiriki would open up such an extent of forest lands that the Railway Department would receive as revenue in the .first six years more than the total cost of the railway; and the export of timber from that district at tho end of six years would not be half as great as it would be at the end of 12 years. The railway now under construction from Ohakune- to Raetihi will open a large area of good milling bush, and the railage of timber from the areas near the latter township will assist greatly towards defraying the cost of construction of the railway.