H.—24

XV

fires, and to report immediately all cases where fires have occurred, and damage has been caused thereby. Rewards might be offered to all persons who give information tending to secure the conviction of offenders. Prevention of Noxious Weeds. We have noticed in different parts of the country that many of the areas used for milling purposes are being overrun with noxious weeds, and think that steps should be taken to protect these areas, and to insure that the land is laid down in grass as Boon as the milling-timber has been taken therefrom. In this connection we approve the principle adopted by the Westland and other Land Boards, who, when a sawmill area has been cut out, and grassed by the miller, load the land on its reversion to the Crown with part value of such grassing, in order that the amount shall be paid by the incoming tenant to the sawmiller who grassed the land. ' Forest Lands and Settlement. The remarks made by Mr. H. C. L. Anderson, M.A., Director of the Intelligence Department and Bureau of Statistics, and Under-Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on Forestry, New South Wales, 1908, are worthy of consideration. He says, inter alia, — " I am clearly of opinion that, while doing everything necessary and expedient to safeguard our timber wealth, and to perpetuate our timber industry, there is not the slightest need to curtail the policy of settling every acre of land that is better adapted for agriculture than for forestry. If it is more profitable, in producing wealth and in supporting men and women, to clear the land for agriculture and dairying, than to leave it in its primitive state for the production of timber, then economic laws demand that the former course be pursued; and when, conversely, it can be clearly shown that large areas can be more profitably used for the production of timber for its various purposes than for crops or grass, then reason dictates that forestry, in this case, is preferable from the national point of view to agriculture or dairying." In the past it has often happened that large areas of forest land, containing timber suitable for milling, have been opened for selection by the Department of Lands, and, in consequence of the conditions of the Land Act that prescribe the felling of bush and clearing of land within a comparatively short period, valuable timber has been destroyed that might otherwise have been used for commercial purposes. We therefore recommend that, wherever practicable, sawmilling on Crown land should precede settlement, and that Crown land should not be opened for selection until it is cleared of milling-timber. By this means the State would profit by the receipt of royalty from the sawmiller, and the settler would have cleared land to farm instead of having to spend money and time in felling and burning the bush. It is also desirable that a stricter supervision should be exercised over the conditions which apply to the preservation of timber on lands held under different forms of lease from the Crown. State Requirements. The Commission approves of the setting-apart of certain forest-areas for the future requirements of the State, and recommends that the policy be extended so as to make adequate provision for public works throughout the Dominion. Every year there is an increasing call \ipon our timber resources for such purposes, particularly in the vicinity of large works, such as the construction of lines of railways, and, judging from the operations of the State sawmill at Kakahi, which we visited and were favourably impressed with, both as regards its methods of. working and the satisfactory results obtained, and also from the working of the sawmill attached to the State Coal-mine at Runanga, there appears to be every ground for believing that the policy that has been adopted at theso two places might be extended with advantage, and that other areas of suitable forest lands might be reserved for the future needs of