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efforts were subsequently assisted by the enactment of " The New Zealand State Forests Act, 1885," which set aside huge areas of Crown land as State forests, and provided for the establishment of schools of forestry and agriculture. Despite these attempts to conserve sufficient timber for the country's requirements, it was recognised that the annual diminution was too great to be met in any other way than the establishment of new plantations of timber-trees to counteract the continual shrinkage, and plantations were started in the Kaingaroa Plains (between Taupo and Rotorua) and in the Otago District under the supervision of the local Commissioners of Crown Lands and their staffs. As it was found necessary to engage a special officer to control the nurseries required in connection with reforestation, Mr. H. J. Matthews was in 1896 appointed to this position, and has been in charge of the nurseries and plantations since that date, whilst the Commissioners of Crown Lands act as Conservators for the State Forests, and the officers of the Department of Lands who till the positions of timber experts and Crown Lands Rangers work under the Commissioners and help to safeguard and periodically inspect the forests. In this way the subject of forest-conservation and afforestation has been carefully studied, and the special requirements of the Dominion met as far as practicable. Establishment of Nurseries. The first nursery started was at Eweburn (Otago), and since then another at Tapanui (Otago), the great nursery at Rotorua, ami a smaller one at Ruatangata, near Whangarei (Auckland), Hanmer Springs (Canterbury), and Starborough (Marlborough), have been established, and plantations made in as convenient vicinity to these nurseries as possible. Being all established in treeless localities, their effect is twofold, as they not -only build up a supply of timber-trees in places where at present they are unobtainable, but their influence on the local climatic conditions will be watched with great interest, though it is, of course, obviously absurd to expect the slightest change in meteorological conditions until" the plantations are of a very large size and well grown, which cannot be the case for some twenty or thirty years to come. It has been the aim of the Department to grow trees not only thoroughly suitable for the requirements of the carpentering trade, ifcc, but also of a fairly quick growth, as by the details previously given it will be seen that in some thirty or forty years' time New Zealand will have used up nearly all the available forests within reasonable access of the centres of population, and will then be probably relying on foreign markets. In the various nurseries and plantations under the control of the Department the most careful experiments have been carried out with a view to seeing which are the most suitable trees for our purposes, and, as funds permitted and circumstances warranted it, the annual planting has been gradually increased. During the year ended 31st March, 1907, an area of 1,992 acres was panted with a little over five million trees, and for the last year a further area of 2,655 acres was planted with six and a half million trees, whilst the total area planted to date amounts to 9,465 acres, on which it is estimated there are nearly twenty-two million trees. Future Requirements. These, however, will not all be available in the years to come, as it must be remembered that tiny will need very extensive thinning and trimming to enable a satisfactory crop of timber to result. In fact, it is probable that out of the five or six million trees planted annually at the present time no more than a third will eventually survive the repeated thinning processes and reach maturity. Moreover, long before they reach an age; at which the best results can be expected, the scarcity of timber in New Zealand is likely to be such that there will be a general demand for the utilisation of the trees for immediate use so soon as they are in any way suitable for the re(|tiirements of our trades. Bearing in mind, therefore, only the industrial requirements of the Dominion, the present rate of planting is only barely sufficient for our future needs, and, although the greatest efforts are made to plant trees which will yield the best results in the shortest space of time, there are very few trees fit for milling under forty or fifty years, and even these will be much more profitable if allowed to remain in the ground another ten or twenty years. Planting for posterity, though admirable in theory, is inevitably attended by pressing and irresistible drawbacks in practice, and all that can be done is to harmonize the needs of the present day as far as practicable with the requirements of future generations. It is almost impossible to lay too great stress upon the importance of the work of reforestation in this country, and each year sees its importance in other lands more and more recognised by far-sighted statesmen, and greater efforts made to insure the permanent timber-supply of the nation. Production op Artificial Forests. Although there is a vast disproportion between the areas annually cut down in our native forests for sawmilling purposes and the areas planted by the Forestry Branch, yet it may be well to point out that an average acre of milling-bush contains a large number of trees unsuitable for sawmilling, and probably only from 10,000 to 20,000 superficial feet of timber is eventually extracted from the area. On the other hand, in our plantations, by successive thinnings, only the best specimens are allowed to remain, and, if a systematic supervision is exercised in the future, the final result will be the production of perhaps six hundred suitable milling-trees, which in forty years' time will each contain on an average 1.000 superficial feet of timber, so that the artificial forest will yield no less than 600,000 superficial feet of timber against the indigenous forest's return of from 10,000 to 20,000 superficial feet. In this comparison no account is taken of the kauri forest, which gives an exceptional yield, for, as the kauri is rapidly disappearing and only forms a small proportion of our native forests, its comparison would be somewhat misleading.

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