A GILT-EDGED INVESTMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1933, Page 6

A GILT-EDGED INVESTMENT.

So much has been said of late emphasising the value of forests to New Zealand in general and Taranaki in particular that people should now be fairly well aware of the position.' The tragedy of the passing of the forest has recently been in striking evidence, and it is a relief 'to turn to the other side of th £ picture. To-day is being observed throughout New Zealand as Arbor Day. the day on which people are invited to plant a tree or shrub in token of their desire to see mankind give back to Nature what he has so thoughtlessly snatched away from her. Arbor Day had its origin in the United States nearly 40 years ago, when Mr. J. S. Morton, Secretary of Agriculture, proposed an annual holiday on which the community could be released from the usual routine of work for the purpose of planting trees. The day has not been taken very seriously by the adult population of New Zealand,, but in many cases it has been observed by appropriate addresses and ceremonies in the schools. That there is a growing recognition of the significance of the day is apparent from the action of the Minister of Internal Affairs in circularising local bodies asking them to hold some suitable gathering to-day. Probably the general public will view the simple but charming occasion in as detached a manner as usual, but if the teachers in the various schools emphasise to their pupils what Arbor Day really means the setting aside of the day will not have been in vain. In many Taranaki schools the spirit of Arbor Day has in the last few years been translated into activity of real value, and the children have been taught to regard forestry in. its proper perspective. The material value of trees, whether it be as shelter belts on farms or as part of a plantation or forest, is manifest in a thousand ways. Their aesthetic value is in the aggregate enormous. ’•-Trees ought to be regarded as a gilt-edged investment the dividends of which are national utility and beauty unlimited.