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of both indigenous and exotic forest are contiguous, and consideration is being given to the details of such a scheme. Only by the immediate inauguration of such a scheme will it be possible to provide the trained, field staff required to overtake the accumulated deficiencies in personnel to enable the Service to function efficiently and economically and to discharge adequately its responsibilities in connection with war, rehabilitation, and peacetime activities. Section B.—lndigenous Forests. 3. The ever-increasing difficulty of locating new and accessible forest areas for cut-out mills is emphasizing the necessity for a nation-wide appraisal of the indigenous forest resources. The value of the general forest inventory carried out over the 1921-25 period was limited by the reconnaissance nature of the work upon which it was based. Its greatest usefulness was in demonstrating beyond all possible doubt the necessity for establishing a capital forest resource of exotic softwoods which would supplement declining supplies of native timbers until such time as the indigenous forests could be brought into full productivity. What is now of vital importance is the organization, of immediate future supplies for the industry not so much for the war period as for its aftermath when demand is likely to expand on a considerable scale: A five-year programme of forest development for both the kauri and white-pine sections of the industry has already been prepared, and a survey of standing rinm supplies is now in progress with a view to organizing an orderly development of this section of the industry over the 1941-48 period. With a contracted staff this appears the only, possible wartime contribution to a national appraisal of the Dominion's indigenous resources. 4. While the basic objective of bringing all remaining major forest areas under working-plan management is an essential feature of these development plans, this is not to be interpreted as any desire to create opportunities for only large producing units ; rather the reverse, in that the purpose is to spread such standing-timber supplies as are available on major forest areas over as long a period as possible, preferably until either younger trees or planted exotics may be harvested. It is a matter for regret that many of those interests already possessing substantial supplies of standing timber by way of either freehold or cutting rights show little if any disposition to manage them on a similar basis, and their failure to conserve these assets cannot but prejudice future applications for timber from State forests. Indeed, the position must soon arise, if it has not already arisen, when consideration should be given to the control of cutting practices on privately-owned forest land with a view to conserving supplies and keeping the land reasonably productive, not ignoring the cogent objective of maintaining an effective vegetative cover in the interests of counter- erosion. 5. One aspect of the soil-erosion movement constitutes a serious threat to the success both of the general forest policy and to the future development of the. sawmilling and allied forest industries. As the more accessible forests are logged and mills move further and further into the hinterland, ardent but unobserving conservationists clamour more and more for a halt to this movement and a lock-up-keep-out policy of reservation for the more inaccessible forests. Extremists have even advocated the limitation of milling operations to country below an altitude of 1,000 ft. above sea-level. Too often the effects of abnormal climatic and seismological disturbances are mistaken for those; of milling operations, and enthusiastic conservationists when faced with overturned trees and recently-killed standing timber in the vicinity of mills attribute the damage to logging operations. Doubtless they harbour in their minds memories and traditions of the grim cut-over- burnt-over areas of a former pre Forest Service era. Now, with effective fire regulations and control, forest fires even in logged-over areas have been a rarity for twenty years. It really takes an expert immediately after logging to distinguish even at a remarkably short distance the actual logged area from the surrounding untouched forest. Actually walking through the forest at this time the logged areas are, of course, easily discernible by snigging tracks, by freshly-cut stumps and beads, and by small patches of crushed undergrowth, but the soil-stabilizing value of the forest remains unimpaired, and within the space of a few years all blemishes have disappeared beneath the invasion of the forest undergrowth. Common-sense will prevail if it is remembered that often not more than five and seldom more than fifty trees out of several hundreds are actually logged per acre.

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