SAWMILLING.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17966, 11 March 1930, Page 4

SAWMILLING.

AN INTERESTING ADDRESS. HAMILTON ROTARY CLUB. Al, yesterday's weekly luncheon of Hie Hamilton Rotary Cltili Mr A. B. Collier gave. Hie following interesling address on sawmilling and its history as far as it. concerned New Zealand. With roforenoc to l.lio early history of sawmilling Mr. Collier said that to really commence at the -beginning it would of course ibe necessary to go back to the dawn of civilisation, since when the. forests had played a most important part in the life and habits of man. in the early stages of man's evolution he first utilised the forest for very primitive forms of shelter and then soon discovered that wood could be used for fuel which added greatly to his comfort. At a later stage, lie found that by Ihe use of -tools he could so fashion the forest products as to form better shelter, and sawmilling today really was ihe result of evolution along those lines. The First Qreat Fact. Dealing with the utilisation of our own forests in the. early days of this Dominion, the first great fact whichimpressed itself on the minds of the seamen adventurers to New Zealand was the surpassing. value of the immense forests of the northern bays. Practically all the first navigators refitted at one or other of the hays and secured spars for their vessels. Early New Zealand history recorded a number of reports on the visits of vessels lo ihese harbours, which reports were forwarded to the British Government, the first being the records of Captain Cook's voyage in the barque Endeavour to New Zealand in 1769. Nearly alt of these reports referred to the fine quality of the New Zealand forests. The spelling of names in these reports was interesting, having been written down as they sounded—thus C-owdie, Remoo, Cowa Cowu. Several « reports from the Rev. Samuel Marsden were particularly interesting, said Mr Collier. lie first visited New Zealand in 181-4, and conducted the first Christian service held in New Zealand on Christmas Day of that year. Marsden was a bit of a wag in his reports to the Britisti Government. He described in one of them how he visited the chief of what lie termed Hie “timber district” of the Bay of Islands. This chief lie called “Terra,” hut probably lie name really was Te Ra (rising sun), and lie presented him with an axe adze and two plane irons and in return received the chiefs consent, to Lake all the timber he wanted, a low rate of royalty I The timber trade in New Zealand began to expand with the arrival of whites who required pukeha houses in place of the native w-harcs. When organised colonisation commenced in 1840, native hush covered about 02,000 square miles, or over hall' the total area of the two Islands. The timber stood oil the best of the land; I ihe new settlers waged war on it, with a result tli’at destruction of bush was | appalling and went on for 30 years i without a check. Schemes of elearj ing the way for pasture had swept j away great areas of the native hush i before" much of the millable timber was cut. Forestry Department Established. The first suggestion towards a decent conservation of the forests was made- in 1868, when the New Zealand Parliament decided to have data collected to show what the position was and what it should be. Dr. Hector, who was a distinguished scientist then in charge of the geological survey of New Zealand, warned the country against the policy of destruction, and when Ihe report was prepared it showed that during ihe period since' the colony lied been established, say from 1830-1873, onethird of the native hush had already disappeared. In 1876 a Department of Forestry was established and Captain Campbell Walker appointed conservator, but the department was abolished in 1887. The First New Zealand Sawmill. The earliest recorded account of a sawmilling venture in New Zealand which Mr Collier had been able to trace occurred in an extract from the journal of one Robert Murray, who was fourth officer in the Endeavour when on her visit to New Zealand in 1795. He said: “At Dusky Cove we felled some trees and erected a sawpit, which wc built on six water butts on which we sawed up planks for boatbuilding and bouse purposes.” He also remarked that in the opinion of the ship's carpenter Ihe limber was very suitable for ship-building, joinery and cabinet-making. Transport. In tho early days the Northern Wairoa was the chief seat of the sawmilling indutry in the North Island, and the logs were mostly boated down the waterways to the mills, sometimes hundreds of 'miles. This -operation of logging was practically the first operation in the milling of timber and the chief factor in alt logging operations was transportation. In the Kauri district Ihe trees after being felled and cross-out into suitable lengths for conversion, were mostly conveyed to the mill by flotation. In the first place roads were roughly cleared, and the logs jacked lo tire creeks by the bushmen and left in the creek until the heavy rains afforded the requisite depth. Under this method it was often necessary to. construct costly dams to impound the water in the upper parts of the creek to be liberated when the water was at its greatest depth in the lower parts so that the entire assemblage of logs could be driven to the booms. In dry seasons logs might remain for months in the bed of creeks, and occasionally after a successful drive the harvest of logs was carried out to sea and lost through the booms breaking because of the immense pressure behind them. The amount of capital lying unproductive in these stored logs was ruinous and had the el'fect of crippling many companies. Largely owing to flotation difficulties the use of steam haulage was developed. Of course bullocks were, and are still, used to some extent for. hauling out logs from inaccessible places, but Messrs F. and \V. G. Foote, of Whangarci, were amongst the first of the sawmiiicrs to introduce and work traction engines for hauling out timber over apparently impossible country and in gelling out logs wltli a wire rope and winding engine. This was the method chiefly employed to-day in New Zealand, and Ihe transportation of logs involved ihe knowledge of how best to apply scientific methods in removing them from their original position as standing trees j to the mill skids. This and other ( tilings had led to Canterbury College j University recently including a course c

in logging engineering, which was part of the forestry course covering four years at the University. This led to the degree of B. of For. Sc., a degree of the same status as the Bach, of Engineering degree. From the fog skids at the hauler stand, which was generally placed alongside a branch tramway, the logs were loaded on lo the bush trucks oil her with timber jacks, in the use of which the bushmen were expert, or else an overhead loading winch was used, the logs being lifted bodily from Iho skids and placed on the truck. The larger sawmilling concerns had their own railway system with its 42-inch track, the. sleet rails weighing from 30111 lo COIL* per yard and were operating locomotives up to .20 tons in weight. It was ihc development of these mechanical appliances which enabled us to work bush which a few years ago would have been considered inaccessible. Milling. Coming to the actual sawing of the logs after they reached the mill, Mr Collier said that in most cases where the diameter of the tree was not too great, they are delivered to the mill in long lengths, and the more modern mills had power-driven saws which cross-cut the logs into marketable lengths. Breaking-down was the first operation that the log went through when it was pulled into the mill from the log skids. Breaking-down was done in the case of heavy logs, first by a vertical saw probably about 10ft in length, followed by a “pacific,” or twin saw, with travelling bench. Logs of lesser girth were broken down at first by twin circular saws which were pigged one above the other so that the upper saw cut that part of the log not reached by the lower one. In some mills breaking down was done entirely with band-saws, which could he used of a lighter guage than the circular, and consequently with less waste in sawdust. After this the flitches passed on to the benches and were cut by means of circular saws into smaller sizes, or the flitches were squared and passed on to the deal frames or gang saws working in unison, and set close together according lo the thickness of the board which it was required lo produce. From the circular saws the board or finished size was passed over to the goose saws which did the necessary docking, and from there on to the sorting table, from which the finished product was graded into classes for the yard stacks. Labour Saving. In most modern mills a great many labour saving devices were installed, such as log kickers, steam niggers, live rolls and chain transfers, hut notwithstanding these, the work of the sawyers at'the various benches called for a large measure of physical and mental alertness These men were required to handle heavy flitches and slabs with speed and precision, and to be capable of deciding at a glance what sizes and classes of piece should be cut into so as lo avoid waste. The Saw Doctor. Another responsible position in the mill was that of the saw doctor, on whose skill in sharpening, hammering and giving correct tension to the saws much depended. Extensive Knowledge. Mr Collier stated that the executive of a sawmilling concern found it necessary to absorb information comprising a varied list of operations, including surveying.. This was necessary when appraising the hush and when laying out routes l'or hauler roads, tramways, elc. Road-making and logging engineering were involved, as first some form of road was required in order to bring the standing timber through the bush in the form of logs to the road or tramway by which the logs were transported to the mill. This latter was by no means so simple as it might appear. Mill-able timber as each year passed was being taken out of more and more inaccessible country, and it. often took weeks -of laborious work on the part of the survey party to locate a grade which would enable t'he logs to be hauled out. Then in -addition to the actual logging, milling and - marketing of the timber, there was usually the problem of the land from which the limber has been taken lo be dealt with. So that the sawmiller had generally to be something of a farmer also, at any rate as l'ar as roughly breaking in the bush country was concerned, because if, after the millable timber was removed, the remainder of Hie bush was not fallen and sown -down in grass it meant that the country went back and was soon a mass of noxious weeds. To-day only about 19,000 square miles of original native bush remained. Tliis, however, had been augmented by the afforestation of about 134,000 'acres by the Government since. 1896. The State Forest aimed at increasing this to 300.000 acres of trees by the year 1 935. In addition to this afforestation companies were planting at the rate of some 40,000 acres annually and it was estimated that the present planting programme would more than provide for the future needs of Lhc Dominion. ’ ■ There were about 100 species of indigenous forest -trees in New Zealand of which about 20 -only were valuable from the .sawmitlers’ point of view. Of these the principal were kauri, I'imu, (tie principal timber tree of the New Zealand forest, and totara, probably of greater durability than any other of our timbers, matai, black pine, the slowest growing and hardest of New Zealand timber, and kahikatea, the finest timber in the world for the manufacture of containers for dairy produce such as butter-boxes and cheese crates. In conclusion the s-peakcr said that there was not time to deal with the question of marketing, to which the industry had recently given a good deal of attention with a view to placing this phase oh a more efficient basis, but that it might be the subject for some future address. Mr Collier extended an invitation to Rolarians to visit any of Messrs Ellis and Burnandts plants upon their return from the Rotary Convention at National Park, or at any other time.