USEFUL AFFORESTATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19441, 29 October 1925, Page 2

USEFUL AFFORESTATION

CLEARING WASTE AREAS. A fine tribute to the value of the afforestation work carried out up to the present by the Cook County Council, Gisborne, was paid by the local Government Inspector of Stock, Mr D. Rohs, in a letter sent to the Council last week. The letter, which referred to block 91, Patutahi, Gentle Annie, was as follows:

“When some six years ago this block first came under my notice it was overrun with briars, fennel, ragwort, Griffen weed, and amongst this noxious growth a crop of young blackberry was bidding for supremacy. There was no similar area in Poverty Bay so pro'ific in noxious weeds. This morning I made an inspection of it and feel I have a pleasant duty to perform and a personal tribute to pay, in compliment■ng you on a marvellous transformation - hrough afforestation. “Over some five or six acres the weeds have been entirely supplanted ’>y a luxuriant growth of gums, some of which I have measured to find that rhey have made, within my own observations, a growth of over elevon feet in the course of twelve months. The first economic consideration is that in annual expenditure upon the clearing of the weeds will now no longer be necessary and the second that a valuable asset has been created for your county. These benefits and others that are equally obvious should have a wider application. I also wish to acknowledge with appreciation the clearing of blackberry from the bush area. “It appears to me regrettable that the clearing of blackberry should be looked upon as an annual necessity, and I have in view a programme for demonstrating that this weed can, by energetic means and the use of efficient, specifics, be brought under proper economic control, if not eradicated. To this end it may be necessary for me to ask for your co-operation on the quarry reserve at Waerenga-o-kuri and Patutahi, where no stock would be endangered. Thus in Poverty Bay, two methods of demonstrating control would be in operation side by side.”