Tung Oil Trees Thrive in Northern New Zealand.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

Tung Oil Trees Thrive in Northern New Zealand.

PLANTATIONS MAY REPLACE SCRUB AND TEA-TREE.

Readily Exportable Product.

(Written for the “ Star ” by

J. J. S. Cornes,

8.A., B.Sc.)

M Y attention has been called to the only fact upon which I expressed or implied any doubt, in last Saturday’s article on the tung tree, namely, that it would fruit in New Zealand.

The accompanying photographs, however, show conclusively that the tree has already fruited in Auckland gardens, and so. presumably, should do so with still greater certainty on the winterless North Auckland Peninsula. I have been privileged to see these photographs in the original and unretouched, as certified to by the wellknown horticultural photographer, Mr Samuel G. N Frith. Of course, none of the trees in the actual plantations north of Auckland is old enough to fruit yet, though promising well. After discussing the matter with Mr James Young, Curator of our Botanic Gardens, who had experience of the tung tree in New South Wale 3 twenty years ago, I feel convinced that the main determining factor is sufficient rainfall, fairly evenly distributed, accompanied by a definite differentiation between summer and winter, but not by early frosts. (The very nature of the foliage, deciduous yet large and

tender, is evidence enough of this). This rare combination of circumstances is certainly found north of Auckland. And as to that other important factor, soil, the same gumlands, nearer Auckland, at Swanson or Warkworth (when cheap buying and efficient management leave funds for ample cultivation) respond with smiling orchards. The many new and varied uses being discovered daily for tung oil assure it of a growing demand beyond the reach of several generations of planting. It seems certain, therefore, that North Auckland, a narrow peninsula of rolling hills kept humid and equable by the Tasman and the Pacific on either hand, and possessing magnificent harbours hitherto handicapped by this very lack of back-counto*, is destined to replace its scrub of teatree and bracken, tauhinu and um-brella-fern, with strange trees yielding a readily exportable product. Thus will the sunny Northland, whose smile drew New Zealand’s first capital to Russell, enter at last into its inheritance.