SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL FORESTRY FOR NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XIII, Issue 4, 20 October 1916, Page 295

SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL FORESTRY FOR NEW ZEALAND.

D. E. Hutchins,

F.R.G.S.*

It has been thought that the forest-trees . of New Zealand grew too slowly to be economically preserved, and that their place should be taken by forest plantations of exotic timbers, and by timber imported from Australia or, at even greater expense, from the other side of the world. It was considered that the wealth of the Dominion lay in sheep and cattle, and . that the country should be developed with them. But while the essential importance of the country’s pastoral industries is not gainsaid, there are other rural economic factors claiming active attention. .The Dominion is now losing wealth and population, together with much of its beauty, by the. indiscriminate destruction of the forests and non-development of the mountain lands as they have been developed in. some of the best parts of Europe, North America, and Japan. .

The forest question is the most important social question now before the country. It is common historical knowledge that every country which, during periods of national neglect, has lost its forests has had to set about restoring them at great expense afterwards. Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, in the latitude of New Zealand, are now doing this. I have recently been on a forest tour through three of these countries, and have , seen something of what they are doing.

It gives food for reflection that within a few miles of the capital of New Zealand, after seventy-six years of colonization, there is mountain forest land, pathless, waste, and returning nothing ; while similar land in the Vosges and Black Forest is covered with a network of roads, the forest in , one or other of its sections always yielding timber, and giving to the State a net return of £2 or £3 per acre per year (average yield over the whole area); the valleys dotted with pulp-mills and timber-mills; and hamlets sheltering. the best manhood of the country.

With the clearing of the bush land to make way for settlement large areas of steep mountain land and poor soil have been denuded of forest, when it would have been better to have kept this ground as national or State forest and employed forest experts to advise regarding the treatment and improvement of the forest. The destruction of the forest in New Zealand has now reached to such a pitch that the welfare of the country is threatened, and the timber industry of the Dominion approaches extinction. The valuable kauri timber is nearly finished, and the Forest Commission of 1913 recommended that the last good kauri forest, the Waipoua, should be destroyed (excepting 200 acres). There is good evidence that the kauri timber burnt in the Puhipuhi Forest had a “ worked-up ” value of about £3,000,000. This figure represents many times the cost of a Forest Department for many years. There could have been no serious fire in the Puhipuhi Forest with a Forest Department and ordinary fire organization. As late as ten years ago it was reported that there was 160,000 acres of kauri forest still remaining “in its natural state.” Kauri timber has almost exactly doubled in price during the last fifteen years ; totara and black-pine for most classes show the same increase.

With the decline of the timber industry in New Zealand has come an increase of timber imports. In the ten years before the outbreak of war, while the population of New Zealand increased 26-5 per cent., timber imports, rose from £161,236 in 1904 to £504,931 in 1913, or 313 per cent. (“ Statistics of New Zealand for 1913, P- 233)- Thus New Zealand, when the war broke out, was paying at the rate of £1,383 per day for imported timber. At the same time there was an importation of £110,493 worth of furniture, £315,706 worth of paper (excluding the fine kinds not made from timber - pulp), and of bark and other tanning substances £37,576. The great bulk of such timber and the wattle-bark for tanning would come directly from the forests of New Zealand if those forests were put in order, while the prosperity of the furniture and paper industries depends primarily on an abundance of the raw materialtimber. It is no argument to say that for the time being timber exports nearly balance imports. The loss of potential wealth and employment in New Zealand from the timber imports remains the same.

Besides these direct losses, New Zealand is suffering from the squandering of some of its most beautiful scenery with the destruction of the forest. With the destruction of the forest river-floods become more severe', and there is waste of good land near the river-beds. With the destruction of the forest erosion tends to tear the soil from the mountain-side and send it out to sea. With the destruction of the forest rivers lose their summer waterthe Wanganui,

for instance. Rivers flooded in winter and low in summer are bad for trout. Grossman, in his pamphlet, “ Evils of Deforestation,” has a valuable chapter with some striking illustrations of the mischief caused by floods in New Zealand.

The protests that have been raised on every side against the ruin of the beautiful forest scenery of New Zealand have resulted in the formation of scenic reserves, which to be of much use would have to be large, and thus extremely costly by keeping so large an area of forest unproductive. As it is, those of them that may be considered permanent are small, and are but imperfectly protected against fires and cattle. There is no guarantee that, left as they now are, any of them will last. It is reported that during 1915 as much as 638 acres was revoked, as the forest had been destroyed. Up to that,year a total of £80,751 had been spent on scenic reserves, chiefly in land purchase and surveys. There is a systematic inspection of the scenic reserves, which is excellent as far as it goes. But the inspecting officer has no executive authority : that lies practically with the Commissioners of Crown Lands, who may or may not take an interest in forestry. In any case they are not foresters, and their lands staff has other duties to attend to.

It is useless attempting to evade the main issuenational forestry. If we Want to preserve forest (such as that on most of the scenic reserves) in contact with civilization, the usual machinery of a Forest Department must be employed. Either all the civilized world is wrong in this respect and New Zealand and England right, or vice versa. With an efficient system of national forestry there would be no difficulty in preserving absolutely untouched, and keeping in a state of nature, those forests that it was intended to preserve as “ nature ” reserves. This is done in parts of the suburban forests of Brussels, of Paris, in the Alps, and elsewhere in Europe, and on a much larger scale in America. With the usual machinery of forest-conservancy the protection of “ nature ” reserves becomes automatic, and their formation as easy as putting an extra train on a State railway.

Lastly, one of the great lessons of the present war is that a country cannot defend itself without a liberal supply of brushwood and timber. Guns have to be screened from observation, and trench-construction takes more timber than mining. The average for ordinary trenches along the French lines has been rather more than a cubic foot of cordwood per foot run of trench. An ordinary battery of guns’ takes about £240 Worth of wood and timber to screen it, or in some places £lOO worth for a single gun. Great quantities of wood and charcoal are required for camp cooking and heating..

FORESTRY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

In South Africa we see the forest cared for as in Europe. All the native forest under the Union Government is being carefully preserved, and most of it worked at a profit. There is a Forest Department, and a complete system of forestry which, while protecting the forests against fires and cattle, works off the. old timber at a handsome profit, and ensures the gradual propagation of a better supply of timber in the future. This has been going on for the last thirtythree years. Valuable exotic timbers are introduced and left to spread naturally, as, in fact, does gorse, blackberry, and manuka now in the wasted forest areas of New Zealand.

The dense evergreen forest of South Africa closely resembles that of New Zealand. Some of the chief trees of each country are podocarps. Thus the two big timber-trees of South Africa are Podocarpus elongata and Podocarpus Thunbergii. They are called yellow-wood, and the largest . of them grow up to diameters of 22 ft. These giant trees have the long, straight, cylindrical bole and the huge spreading crown of the kauri-trees of New Zealand. In New Zealand there is Podocarpus spicatus (black-pine), Podocarpus ferruginea (miro), Podocarpus dacrydioides (white-pine), and Podocarpus tolar a in fact, all the chief timbers are podocarps except kauri, rimu, and puriri. Geologically, possibly, it was one forest at one time, and that geological time just the period required to differentiate the species.

The indigenous Podocarpus forest of South Africa is a small area in the South African Union, but the same forest, little modified, stretches- up the eastern highlands of Africa to the Equator in British East Africa— compensating latitudeand terminates, I understand, in Abyssinia. Thus the forest at sea-level in lat. 34 0 south is nearly the same as the forest at 8,000 ft. under the Equator. I can speak positively about this forest, because I spent twenty-six years as a forest officer in South Africa and four years as Chief Conservator of Forests in British East Africa. My surprise and delight may be imagined when I walked near Auckland into what looked like the. same forest, .and my horror .at seeing this forest being recklessly destroyed because. it was . not fully realized that, it could be .worked and eserved (indeed, gradually, improved) as in South Africa.

. After nine months spent in New . Zealand and an official tour ,to the various types of forest in each Island, this first impression has ripened into the certainty that nothing more than . ordinary forest organization is required to work, and .at the same time perpetuate and improve, the. forests of New Zealand. . On the whole, the forest of South Africa is less valuable than that of New Zealand, and.

certain of the best trees grow some 50 . per cent, more slowly. Compare, for instance, the totara figured in the report of the New Zealand Forest Commission of 1913 with the growth of stinkwood and white-pear reported in the last South African Forest Yearly Report.

There is nothing remarkable about the forest-work that is going on in South Africa ; it is simply what is being done throughout the civilized world —all over Europe, North America, Japan, and more recently Chile, while within the last year or two the Argentine and even China have also taken the first steps in forestry. What is very remarkable is that a civilized country like New Zealand, with forestry naturally indicated as one of its chief industries, should as yet have not taken the first steps in scientific forestry.

FORESTRY AND THE COST OF LIVING.

The loss of the forest (apart from present war conditions) may be regarded as one of the chief causes of the rise in the cost of living in New Zealand. Timber for house-building, and abundant firewood, are prime necessaries of the household. But these have been banished to a distance from every town in New Zealand. It made no difference whether there was economical forest land near the town or not—down went the forest and up went the cost of living. At Brussels one steps out of one of the best streets (the Avenue Louise) into the Bois de la Cambre and the Forest of Soignes, which is the second-largest State forest of Belgium.

'At Cape Town, where the coal-mines are at a distance as with Wellington, firewood is the poor man’s fuel, coal the rich man’s. It is cheaper in the suburbs of Cape Town to grow wattle and eucalypt firewood than to buy coal. I speak with the experience of a householder of twenty years’ standing. I grew all the firing required for my household in the grounds round my house. A supply for a year’s cooking and four months’ warming fires is what is required at Cape Town.

Suppose the mountains near Wellington were under good forest conserved by . the State, that would mean cheap house-building timber, cheap firewood, and considerable employment for the men tending the forest and working the timber and firewood— twenty times the employment afforded by sheep-runs or cattle-walks. But often when the forest is destroyed the grassing fails wholly or in part, and then production ceases, and the area becomes a pathless waste of gorse, fern, bramble, and manuka scrub.

The French have a saying, “ Tout revient a la foret,” referring to the value of the forest in providing man with so many of his

housing, bring, grass, fodder, recreation-grounds, &c. The nearer the forest can economically be kept to a man s back door the lower the cost of living. England has destroyed its forests; it has little State forestry now, and pays out forty-three millions sterling a year for imported timber and forest produce. England loses, too, with the loss of its forests a great rural industry and the pick of its manhood. New Zealand cannot afford to follow this example. France, on the other hand, has nearly double the whole population of New Zealand employed in the care and working of French forests and in forest industries. Similarly, Germany has some four million people living directly and indirectly on its forests; otherwise, with its intense earth-hunger, it would not keep one-fourth of its area under forest.

Some of the. war maps that have been published lately present a picture of forest in the most industrial part of Europe, which is a striking object-lesson. While New Zealand, as regards forestry, is now drifting into the condition of the old-time misgoverned countries of Europe—Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece— war maps of France and Germany show that they, in their most advanced and industrial parts, have some 25 per cent, of their areas occupied by forest, which is dotted about the country among the fields, villages, and towns. I could give some interesting accounts of the extraordinary cheapness of living and the well-being of the people dwelling in the forest valleys of the Vosges and Black Forest.

GROWTH OF NEW ZEALAND TIMBER-TREES.

Forestry in New Zealand has been misjudged by the entirely erroneous idea that the New Zealand native timber-trees grow more slowly than the ordinary timber-trees of other countries. Statements to that effect are common, but they will not bear critical examination. I find that most of the timber-trees, of New Zealand grow faster than the timber-trees of Europe and America and kauri, the two chief timbers, decidedly faster. As already mentioned, according to the last published returns, the New Zealand timber-trees grow some 50 per cent, faster than two of the chief native timber-trees of South Africa. It is the same story if we compare the growth of New Zealand trees with those of North America, as may be seen by reference to pages 363 to 367 of a recent work on American forestry by Professors Moon and Brown. Nearly all the American timbers grow rather slower than kauri and rimu, some much slower.

The mistake regarding the growth of New Zealand trees has arisen from two causes(i.) Comparing trees such as kauri, rimu, and totara, trees of the dense evergreen forest, which generally

grow badly when taken out of the forest,, with certain quickgrowing exotic trees- insignis pine, eucalypts, and wattlestrees of the open forest, which grow well when planted in the open, and which have been picked for their rapid growth in countries with much larger forest floras than that of New Zealand. (2.) It has been assumed that the profitable cutting-maturity of New Zealand trees is that at which they are now felled. In the Forest Commission’s Report of 1913 is given a somewhat striking figure of the cross-section of a totara-tree 8 ft. in diameter, and a diagram is added showing that, from a computation. of the rings, it is 416 years old. The conclusion intended to be drawn is that it takes 416 years for a totara to mature. ' This is very misleading. Thus the Californian redwood in virgin forest lives from 1,300 to 1,750 years (Kent, in “ Manual of Conifers ”) ; but the most profitable cuttingage is somewhere about fifty to eighty years. Douglas fir, again, lives 450 to 750 years in virgin forest, while in English plantations it is cut at forty years.

There has been no scientific forestry in New Zealand, and no foresters to measure the actual production of timber per acre per year in the forestsurely a strange position in a forest country after seventy-six years of civilization! The indications, however, are pretty clear that the native New Zealand timber-trees grow, on an average, decidedly faster than the five chief timber-trees in the forests of Europe. Kauri has a somewhat better height-growth, and almost double the diameter-growth. In a normal dense forest the height-growth of kauri would be improved and the diameter-growth reduced. As it is, there is the remarkable; fact that kauri with yearly rings nearly 1 in. wide is known (Cheeseman). I myself have seen kauri with in. rings. In the common pine of Europe, Scotch pine (apart from deformity), no such broad rings would ever occur.

In the New Plymouth Botanic Gardens (Pukekura Park) is a good collection of all the best timber-trees of New Zealand. These have been planted, and their exact age is now known. The shade and moisture conditions are much like those in the native forest. These planted native trees are growing at an average rate of 2 ft. or 3 ft. per year in height, while some of them are growing faster. Thus a graceful birch-like ribbonwood-tree (Plagianthus betulinus) in front of the tea-house is 25 ft. high at six years of age. A prominent New Zealand mahogany-tree (Dysoxylon spectabile) has grown 4 ft. during the past summer. I saw a score or more young rimutrees growing at the rate of 2 ft. or 3 ft. in height per year, and one thirty-year-old tree making shoots of 3 ft. per year. The imported trees, apart from insignis pine and ' one or two eucalypts and wattles,

grow no faster, says the curator. I saw an English oak and a puriri of the same age growing side by side, the puriri decidedly the larger tree. Two puriri-trees, seven years of age, average 18 ft. high. I saw a perfectly grown little kauri 18 ft. high at twelve

years of age. Elsewhere in New Plymouth is a healthy kauri-tree which at thirty years of age is 9 in. in diameter and 38 ft. high ; and there, of course, kauri is too far south for its best growth. Nevertheless, according to the standard-yield tables, an average

Scotch pine in central Europe forests is. only 3 in, to o 4 in. diameter and 29 ft. high at the same age. Thus here, in a climate too cold for it, is kauri growing faster than the ordinary pine-tree of Europe.

At Dargaville (lat. 36°) Mr. Mitchelson showed me a kauri he had planted that at sixteen years from planting was 9 in. in diameter and 32 ft. high. Here is a kauri, in its own climate, with nearly double the growth of the New Plymouth tree, and far beyond all practical comparison with Scotch pine, for the normal for Scotch pine at sixteen years on average-quality soil is i| in. diameter and 13 ft. height.

In the Jubilee Park, Dunedin, are two beeches growing side by side, Fagus fusca (New Zealand) and Fagus sylvatica (Europe). They are the same age, but the New Zealand beech is distinctly larger. .

A number of planted trees in the Auckland Domain were systematically measured and described in a paper read before the Auckland Institute in 1887. This showed that for the first twenty years the native trees averaged about 1 ft. in height-growth per year, and about j in. in diameter-growth per year. There the conditions are not so favourable as in the New Plymouth Botanic Gardens : the surroundings are less like the shade and shelter of the native forest, but the growth is still far above the European forest standard. Rimu and kauri, the two important timber-trees of New Zealand, grew the fastest; and at twenty years they averaged 8 in. diameter and 28 ft. high. A Scotch pine on soil of medium quality, in central Europe, at the same age will average 2 in. in diameter and 17 ft. in height (Schlich’s Manual of Forestry,” Vol. iii, p. 343). Thus the standard European pine has little more than half the height-growth and exactly one-fourth the thickness of these rimu and kauri trees in the Auckland Domain at the same age.

An interesting list in the Forest Commission Report of 1913 (page 70) gives the following dimensions for various native trees at forty years of age: Kauri and rimu average 9 in. diameter and 50 ft. height; totara and white-pine average 11 in. diameter and 38 ft. height; miro and black-pine average 4J in. diameter and 27 ft. height. Scotch pine at forty years averages 4|in. diameter and 38 ft. height, according to the normal-yield tables. Thus at forty years kauri and rimu are far above Scotch pine both in height and diameter growth; totara and • white-pine are above the diametergrowth and equal in height-growth ; miro and black-pine are lower in height-growth and show the same diameter-growth.

Cheeseman has made elaborate investigations on the growth of kauri. His general result is 9-7 rings per inch of radius: Kirk’s figure is 10. These results are about double the average of the five

common European timber-trees, on soil of average quality, cut at the best age for maximum growth ; while the New Zealand trees are not measured at the best age for maximum growth.

It might be expected that kauri would grow faster than timbertrees of mid-Europe, because the latter are in a colder- climate; but when we compare kauri with cluster-pine (P. pinaster), the common pine of southern Europe, we see that kauri is still the faster-growing tree. Thus at maturity at eighty years cluster-pine averages 11 in. diameter and 79 ft. height, or practically an average of 1 ft. height-growth and 14-4 rings of radius-growth, since H = 0-1375 in. diameter-growth per year, or 7-2 rings per inch diameter and 14-4 radius (Normal-yield table, Forest of Leiria, Portugal: .Brit. Assoc., 1914). ■ '

The economic cutting-size of kauri may lie between 9 in. and 3 ft. diameter. Seven of Cheeseman’s kauri-trees come within these limits, and show an average of 8-2 rings per inch of radius (Trans. N.Z. Inst., June, 1914, p. 14). Thus we have rings of yearly growth per inch of radius as follows : General average of five chief European timber-trees, at usual felling-ages, 19 rings; cluster-pine, South Europe, Leiria Forest, 14-4 rings; kauri, seven of Cheeseman’s trees, 9 in. to 3 ft. diameter, 8-2 rings. . In this comparison we must not attach too much importance to the diameter-growth alone, because the European forest figures refer to normal, closely grown forest-trees, and these have less diameter-growth than trees in’ the open, and the kauri-trees are partially in the open; but the height-growth comparison is to the advantage of the European trees, 1 since they have been drawn up by close growth, and the native trees in these examples have been only partially or not at all drawn up. In spite of this, the average height-growth of kauri is rather faster than the average of the five chief European timber-trees, while the diameter-growth is almost double.

In the course of a twelve-months residence in New Zealand I have measured some hundreds of yearly ring-growths on. cut trees. With a few exceptions, and these not the most important trees, they all tell the same tale an average growth rather faster than European trees and a good deal faster than South African native trees. Blackpine, the slowest grower among the large timber-trees of New Zealand, shows twenty-five rings per inch on Mr. Phillips Turner’s specimens that is, I2| years per inch of diameter-growth. Scotch pine, at the various ages up to maturity, ranges between nine and ten rings per inch of diameter-growth.

Certain precautions have to be taken in counting the growthrings. For the purposes of practical forestry we may discard the big old trees long past the cutting-age of economic forestry. These

always show. very, fine rings towards the bark, since the year’s growth is spread round so large a periphery. Then, again, with the smaller trees :of practical forestry the mean radius has to be taken, since, normally, every tree tends to have broad rings near the pith and narrow rings. near the bark.

. .The rings of. growth on New Zealand trees are not so clear as on European trees,-but they are generally clear enough to be accurately counted with'.a. little, trouble. So-far, the only rings that I have found not to be yearly are those of rewarewa (Knightia excelsa)-. The yearly character of all the - other rings is judged from the appearance of the rings themselves, and from the check afforded by rings on -planted, trees of known age. - The smallest rings that I have seen, on medium-sized logs, are fifty to an inch on the mean radius .of a silver-pine (Dacrydium ■ Colensoi) ; -the largest, two rings to. an inch on kauri. - .

.1. This . evidence with regard' to the growth of native trees can be verified by any one without- much trouble. The curator of the Botanical. Gardens, New Plymouth, Mr. W. W. Smith, is courtesy itself to visitors.. It is usually not difficult to count the rings on trees .that, have . been cut in the forest. Schlich’s “Manual of Forestry,” . with, its normal-yield tables, is in the library ■of the New Zealand. Institute and elsewhere at Wellington ; also Spiedel’s Yield Curves in my “ Journal of a Forest Tour.” • Sir W. Schlich. is . the Professor of .Forestry at Oxford University and the highest authority on . scientific forestry in-England. There are collections of timbers in some of the New Zealand museums, and in Mr., Phillips Turner’s office at the Lands Department, Wellington, are various interesting. samples of New- Zealand timbers.

c.'To have a quite accurate comparison of forest-tree growths one requires a forester’s valuation survey of a fully stocked forest area, of known age, in a New Zealand forest. But as there have never been trained foresters in the Dominion to make such a valuation survey, I can only, say that, as far as present data exist, kauri and rimu, the . premier . timbers .of New Zealand, in a ■ fully stocked New Zealand forest would show an average growth faster than, any of the ordinary European, forest timber-trees—Scot pine, spruce, silver-fir, oak, . and beech. Kauri is decidedly the best" timber-tree in New Zealand. . It seems to be equally certain that it is the fastest grower among the .good timber-trees of the country..

In the report on New Zealand forestry which I am preparing for the New Zealand Government I give an abstract of the growth data of various New Zealand, European, and American trees. I cite Scotch pine here because it is of medium-rapid growth, and because it is the common house-building timber of Europe.

In all this we must be careful to remember that I am comparing the average growth of native trees in their forest homes in Europe, in America, and in New Zealand. It is quite ' another story comparing these closely grown forest-trees, which alone produce the best timber, with trees grown in the open or in sparse plantations. The production of timber per acre with either close-grown or sparsegrown trees will be about the same, but the production of timber per tree very different.

Then, too, we must remember that many trees taken out of the shade and shelter of their forest homes and planted in the open are nearly like fish out of water. That is the tendency with the native trees of New Zealand : taken out of their sheltered homes they tend to grow badly or to die. Kauri and totara are the least sensitive in this way.

.For commercial purposes none of the South African trees grow fast enough to repay the cost of planting ; but when Nature gives us forests of them it will pay to maintain those forests. That is quite a common case with many of the best trees jarrah, for instance. No one has yet succeeded in making profitable plantations of jarrah.

Naturally, taking the world through; for ..planting purposes trees picked for their quick growth are to be preferred to either the ordinary forest-trees of- Europe, of America, or of New Zealand. It does not follow that rapidly grown trees must necessarily produce inferior timber. Closely grown insignis pine produces a fine-grained timber, and the production, of timber per acre is quite remarkable.

In Europe the planting of exotics hardly enters, as yet, into practical forestry, though they have been under trial for well over a hundred years. It is certain that for practical forestry in New Zealand the first and most important • thing is to care for and improve the native forest, exactly as the native forest has been cared , for and improved in Europe, or, to come nearer home, as the forest in South Africa, so like that of New Zealand, is being cared for and improved. •

The fact is there, has been an unaccountable belittling of the native trees of New Zealand, their value arid their growth. To give an instance : All the-books on the subject state that whitepine is the tallest of the native trees, and that it does not grow higher than 150 ft. I had not been a week in the West Coast forests before I measured a white-pine (with a verified angular instrument) which was 210 ft. high ; and Mr. Phillips, Turner has measured with a theodolite and surveyor s chain another white-pine nearly as high. Near Lake lanthe I .measured a rimu 5 ft. in diameter (above the base bulge) and 195 ft. high. No doubt there

are higher trees than these; I believe I saw higher trees, but the forest was too dense for me to measure them.

QUALITY AND “ STAND ” OF NEW ZEALAND TIMBER. In the quality of their timber the native trees of New Zealand seem to equal those of Europe. Kauri for indoor work and totara for outdoor work compare with oak. Rimu for ordinary housebuilding is better than Scotch pine. White-pine compares with spruce and silver-fir generally, but is better for butter-boxes. The timber of the New Zealand beeches seems much like that of the European beech, but the red or fusca New Zealand beech is decidedly better. The defective forestry of New Zealand has undoubtedly depreciated the value of the native timbers in allowing them to be felled out of season and used while the timber was still quite wet. Kauri ranks high on the English timber-market; prewar prices were 4s. per cubic foot for kauri, against 3s. for such valuable timbers as black-walnut and peccil-cedar —in fact, there is no ordinary good timber that fetches a higher price than kauri on the English market. It is the same with kauri on the Australian market. But when one gets to New Zealand it is one of the ■saddest stories in the colonial, history of the British Empire to learn how these valuable kauri-trees have been destroyed — too, for no reason, for the kauri forest might just as well have been milled and preserved as milled and destroyed. All the good kauri land might have had the forest milled and cleared for settlers; but the bulk of the kauri forest which is on poor soil should have been demarcated ' into the national forest area of New Zealand. But, alas, there has been no discrimination, no forest demarcation simply a reckless destruction in ignorance of the forestry methods of other countries.

. None of the trees planted in the Government forest plantations have the same value as kauri, with the exception perhaps of ■Californian redwood, and that has been little planted ; while of the little planted a proportion has been lost through faulty forestry — a wrong 1 mixture in the planting.

Satisfactory as are the growth and value of the native trees, it must be remembered that their growth, in quantity and quality, in the wild unimproved forest, is being reduced by their being' for a time dominated by other trees. Too much or too little growingspace will equally spoil a timber-tree. This loss of growth is shown on ■ the cross-sections' of most New Zealand trees that I have examined, . and crookedness is a common fault in New Zealand timber. These faults will be remedied in the more regular cultivated forests of the future. The chief fault, however, in the New Zealand

forest .of to-day is not slowness of . growth, or bad quality in the timber, but a low “ stand ” of timber. . The last official forest report quotes 15,000 superficial feet (1,250 cubic feet) as the average yield of sawn timber per acre of millable forest (Lands Department Report on State Nurseries, 1916). ■ Very curiously, Captain Campbell Walker, the Indian forester, quoted exactly the same figure forty years ago (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1876), the two computations being made quite independently. For good kauri forest Kirk quotes an average stand of about 2,000 cubic feet milled. This with more conservative working would probably represent a stand of about 3,000 cubic feet in Europe. . These New Zealand stands may be compared with 4,000 cubic feet (the usual figure for Scotch pine in Scotland), cutting at age eighty years, or central Europe, 5,340 . cubic feet, cutting at no years. But 'the. stand in the wild forest is generally low. Thus good forest on the Appalachians (latitude and climate of New Zealand) in North America has an average stand of 1,400 cubic feet only. Thus the real fault in the New Zealand forest of to-day, the low “ stand, is remediable by good forestry, of which the chief points would be a very careful marking of fellable timber so as to ensure the best.. natural regeneration, and a liberal expenditure on such cultural operations as the condition of the forest demanded ringbarking or thinning to let in light, and seed-sowing, planting, or seedling transference in too open areas. ...

CLASSES OF FOREST.

In. most countries we see three classes of forests (i) The .wild virgin forest, with trees sometimes very good (but in South Africa and New Zealand only good in .patches), and stocked with much timber that is badly shaped, overmature, ' and unsound, (2) the cultivated forest, the common forest of most of Europe; (3) forest plantations.

The cultivated forest is produced by modern forestry science, mainly by regulating the.. cuttings. Almost always the forest regenerates itself, and, as a whole, is continuous in its growth and reproduction. To any one but a forester this forest looks exactly like the wild., forest, except that it is somewhat more regular, with a better stand of timber. This class of forest, towards which all the forests of the civilized world are tending, has been entirely lost sight of in New Zealand, ' and this is the fundamental mistake that has been made in the forest policy of the country. It has been assumed that plantations of exotic trees can replace the. native forests, but that is a rather risky and certainly a costly assumption. There is always, risk in planting exotic trees, and if New Zealand had to .be * supplied with timber grown entirely in

forest plantations the cost would be enormous. Thus Victoria has some 4,000,000 acres .of demarcated. forest reserves, . . a./small.' area according to European standards. To replant- this area, taking actual South African/figures- of cost, would entail an expenditure of about sixty millions ..sterling, or . 240 millions allowing, interest at 4 per cent, up to a mean cutting-period of forty, years. . ..

.. ■ This is not to say that, forest plantations, are unnecessary .in > New Zealand, though they. are not so absolutely essential as in South Africa. t To-day. New Zealand requires large ’.areas of . the quickly growing insignis pine, for packing-case timber, &c. This.- can be produced in twelve to sixteen years.. It .will supply a great want, and certainly give. a good return on the outlay.. Good. insignis pine boxes have been produced for some years in South Australia. They sell there on the open , market at a slightly higher price than the boxes made of imported pine. .

Eucalypt .plantations of ironbark, blackbutt,, and tallow-wood, and the same trees, introduced to the kauri forests in the Northland spreading self-sown, are even more urgently , required . for . railway purposes. . There is little really, good sleeper-timber in. New. Zealand forests. Tallow- and .blackbutt grow faster than any New Zealand trees, and the best... of the ironbarks. certainly faster at first.

My personal leanings are in favour, of exotics. • I have been for the best years of my life planting them in South Africa. I should introduce self-spreading, valuable ■ exotic timbers ■ everywhere in the New Zealand forests, except in the scenic reserves preserved as parks for .the native flora. It is sad to think that seventy-six years have been allowed to elapse in the history of civilization in New Zealand without introducing the quick-spreading exotic timbers, especially in such forests as those of the beech, . where the stand of timber is low in . quantity and quality ; and this neglect is the more regrettable because these forests have a clean forest soil, so favourable for the. purpose. When I first saw these neglected beech forests I had the vision of an . unopened • diamond-mine. So small a portion of the £40,000 ■ now being spent yearly on forestry would have sufficed for the introduction of self-spreading exotics seventy-six years ago ! Then there is the lesson of . their growth to be learnt, the quality of timber they may produce under given conditions, their natural regeneration, and so on. This is all precious to the foresters of. the future. It is a duty owed to posterity.

NEW ZEALAND FOREST PLANTATIONS.

The forest plantations that have been made by the Government in open country are the redeeming feature ■in all the ' story of forest waste and destruction in New Zealand.- The growth of’ the

plantation trees, especially at Rotorua, is often magnificent. After the- kauri-trees and the beech forests, nothing that I have seen in New Zealand has pleased me so much as the Rotorua plantations. For' their age there are no finer timber plantations in the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa has not got an individual plantation of the same age which makes so good a show. The Australian plantations, at Whyte Park in South Australia, and at Macedon in Victoria, are sparse-planted and designed only to produce coarse timber. The Chilian plantations of insignis pine are not, I understand, equal in extent to those at Rotorua. There has been equally good planting in- the South Island on a smaller scale.

The managers of- the New Zealand Government timber plantations (curiously styled “ Superintending Nurserymen ”) deserve well of the country. They have achieved a great measure of success in spite of a shockingly bad system of organization, a system so bad that if they had failed entirely no blame of any sort could have been imputed to them. There have been no working plans and no real technical direction. It is owing to the excellence of the • local staffs and the careful management of the Lands Department that such a makeshift system has not broken down entirely.

Naturally, with a staff whose technical knowledge of forestry did not • extend • beyond nursery-work, mistakes became evident as soon as the trees began to grow. This is not the place to describe the mistakes; but it is necessary to refer to them because the failures that have occurred have been thought to be inevitable, and that is far from being the case. What is the use of making plantations to be burnt ? ” has been asked over and over again. ~ As a matter of fact, the forest plantations should be as safe as a house where there is a fire brigade. As it is, there has been serious loss

from fire, except at Rotorua. Sometimes, too, wrong trees have been planted, in the wrong place and in the wrong manner, as in the (fortunately small) plantations near Blenheim and Whangarei, where there has been serious failure. Actually nineteen years elapsed before, apparently, any one thought of planting any - quantity of the tree that should have been first planted, the insignis pine. Millions of useless trees were planted, such as catalpa, and the “ bois blancs ’ of France, weeds of the forest. Often the kind of trees planted depend? on what tree-seed could be picked up at short notice from the nursery trade of Wellington. There is no Government seed-store as in South. Africa. Instead of getting Scotch-pine seed from Spain, where there are superb forests and in the exact climate of New Zealand, seed was obtained' from England, then from Sweden, and now seed from Finland is being tried.

The plantations were not laid out on. a definite plan, so that they were exposed to fire from the first. There have been serious losses from fire, and two of the smaller plantations have been practically burnt out. Foresters are very careful about mixing -planting till they can see their way quite clearly. In the New Zealand Government plantations the same caution has not always been shown, so that some of the best trees Californian redwood, Douglas fir, &c.—have not been able to develop.

’ Most, if not all, of these mistakes were pointed out by the Forestry Commission of 1913, and its report can be easily referred to for details. It did not require a knowledge of forestry to see them. Others have been since remedied by the Lands Department, to whom every credit is due for the good work that is now being done. The Lands Department was in no way responsible for the appointment or the mistakes of the late Chief Forester (deceased), of whom one hears nothing but praise, but who had the misfortune to be placed in charge of technical work with no means of acquiring a practical knowledge of it (see the interesting brochure issued by the Lands Department in 1914, at page 11).

The war broke out soon after the report of the Forest Commission was . made, so that the fundamental error of having so considerable a forest expenditure without a skilled technically trained forester in charge still remains. There is still in New Zealand no responsible Forest Department as in other civilized countries. There is not at present a fully trained forester in the Civil Service of the Dominion; not a man who could go into the wild forest and draw up a technical working plan, mark a coupe, or make a valuation survey, nor in a regular forest rightly estimate the value of thinnings or final cuttings at different ages of maturity.

In the plantations will soon come the all-important question of thinning. The sylviculture of thinning is a technical subject. It cannot be learnt from books alone. The tendency in New Zealand will be to follow English text-books and overthin. That has already begun in the Government forest plantations. Not enough allowance has been made for the ’ difference in the light-intensity of British and New Zealand latitudes, the sun of England and the sun of Spain. Australia has cut the knot by having only wide planting and coarse timber. The New Zealand plantations are close-planted, and should produce fine-grained timber with skilful thinning.

Much is to be learnt from travel, but a good knowledge of sylviculture requires long study under a master. Mr. R. G. Robinson, who has charge of the. forestry of the South Island, was sent on a useful forest tour, but the war unfortunately cut it short as he approached Spanish latitudes. ■

It is worth noting that our good friends the Russians, who are steadily getting into order their huge areas of wild forest, had, when the war broke out, no less than eight hundred trained foresters doing “ working plans.” By “ trained foresters ” I mean university men, ranking in their scientific training, with medical men and scientific agriculturists in New Zealand.

The success that has been achieved in the forest plantations, particularly the fine plantations .at Rotorua, makes it quite clear that with ordinary • business precautions forest-planting .in New Zealand is a State necessity of the first importance. Besides the special planting-of insignis pine and poplar to replace white-pine for box and case timber, plantations of fir, poplar, &c., for paper-pulp, and special eucalypt (ironbark, &c.) plantations for railway purposes in the North, much planting will be required to put the native forest in order and to introduce the valuable self-spreading timber-trees, such as silver-fir, spruce, Douglas (Oregon), Thuya plicata, Tsuga Mertensiana, Cupressus Lawsoniana, &c., which are some of the picked timber of the world in these latitudes. They are the trees that are looked forward to for the “ new forestry ” of England. They are mostly already growing well in England, and may be expected, to do equally as well in the New Zealand native forest, since they are shadebearers in temperament, and grow naturally under conditions similar to those of the New Zealand bush. They also spring up self-sown amongst scrub, gorse, and fern. : ■

I may cite one case in/point : Thuya plicata, the western redcedar of America, is coming up like a weed in the grounds of one of the old houses at Hokitika. It is a tree that delights in the swamps and wet of the West Coast forests of the South Island. Amongst the fine collection of coniferous timber-trees on the Pacific slope it is one of the best. Its timber is very durable, soft, and easily worked. It represents about one-third of the forest resources of British Columbia. It attains magnificent proportions : trees 16 ft. in diameter and 200 ft. high have been found. The seeds are very small and light, and travel far, and it is an abundant seed-bearer. It is described as growing best in America in moist places, such as beds of moss or on decaying logs and stumps in regions of heavy rainfall. The seedlings have a remarkable power of thriving in dense shade. Naturally they cannot grow much under these conditions, but they do not die, and when the forest is opened out they shoot up. The average growth is reported as exactly the same as New Zealand kauri.

For the planting of such trees in the native forests of New Zealand small “ bush ” nurseries require to be made ; and the self-spreading timber-trees can be introduced by ring-barking and planting in strips.

No other cultivation would be required, the weeds being kept down by “cut and mulch” (see my "Australian Forestry”). Last year half a million blackwood - trees were planted in this way in the native forest in South Africa.

For the more open classes of New Zealand forest there is the introduction of well-selected eucalypts and wattles. The self-spreading qualities of these are well known.

- Lastly, planting will have to be resorted to in the wild forest wherever natural regeneration fails. Foresters will make it the business of their lives to study the natural regeneration of the best native timber-trees, and to mark their coupes or felling-areas in the interest both of the sawmillers and natural regeneration ; but the latter .must sometimes fail, and then there will be nothing left but planting. We must remember that every native bush left unworked and unimproved is an idle capital returning no interest, and in this sense a national loss. We can only get it milled gradually as the country is developed, but the self-spreading valuable timber-trees of other countries may be got in at once. This is a big planting proposition. It will mean steady work extending over years. '

Thus, to get the wild forest into order as profitable national estates much planting is necessary. The doubtful financial position of the present plantations is only what had to be expected, since the work has been done without the usual skilled direction. This is easily remediable and it must be remembered that even although there , may be loss on the first crop of trees in the present timber plantations, if natural regeneration can be managed there will be gain on the second and subsequent crops. And, further, it is quite possible that under skilled direction for future plantations, with a better selection of planting-sites, and the rapid increase in the value of timber in New Zealand, Government timber-planting (apart from that in the native forests) may give profitable returns, rivalling the returns from the improved • native forests.

And when all is said and done, even although timber plantations (outside the bush ”) may not be remunerative for many years, the State reaps indirect advantages which in a national sense will compensate loss. That is the general position in South Africa. Some of the plantations there will never return interest on their cost; but there are national grounds for their formation which outweigh other considerationsexactly as the Germans deliberately maintain their Spessart oaks, cut at a regular rotation of three hundred years. This is done because the Spessart oaks support certain important industries ; and if South Africa never gets interest on certain plantations it has the satisfaction of knowing that timber representing the greater part of the one and a quarter millions sterling going yearly

out of . the country for imported timber is now being produced in South Africa.

. And that is the main issue for New ZeaMnd., Is it to lose half a million yearly: (soon to be one million) or keep that half-million in the Dominion ? If the natural forest had been demarcated fifty years ago, comparatively little forest-planting would have been required in New Zealand. But that was not done, and it is of no use now crying over spilt milk. The deficiency of natural forest must be made up with forest-planting, and the sooner that is done the better for the finances and industries of the Dominion, and, it may be added, the better for the development and settlement of the farm lands , adjoining the boundaries of the demarcated forests, since roads and development of the forests render farming more productive and the conditions of living more attractive.

FIRE.

Fire is the bugbear of amateur forestry. It has been thought to be an obstacle to forestry in New Zealand. - Actually, in no .country that I know of is fire-protection easier. In New Zealand forests there is nothing like the danger from fire that exists in Australia, in South Africa, or in the southern pine forests of Europe. Of course there must be some organization, even in a country where the work is so easy as in New Zealand. As already mentioned, two of the forest plantations have been nearly burnt out, and there was a very dangerous fire at Hamner shortly before my recent visit there. But with ordinary organization plantations in the damp climate of New Zealand would run little risk. ' Most of the native forest in its natural state will rarely burn, and here again only ordinary precautions are necessary to keep it free from any fire danger when it is being worked. In the forest plantations of New Zealand a few years good management now would go far towards repairing the mistakes of the past and endowing the country with valuable forest estates, but a more complete organization against fire is a first necessity. ,

(To be continued.)

The drawings of the small sheep-handling plant published in last month’s Journal were after plans designed by Mr. H. Munro, Inspector of Stock, Wellington, for use at the Somes Island Quarantine - station, where a small flock of sheep is run by the Department of Agriculture. In connection with the plans as printed, the scale is given as io ft.Vo i in. This applied to the larger original drawing, and was inadvertently retained when the plan was photographically reduced to the size of the Journal page. As, however, all the measurements of the various parts of the plant are given on the plan, the matter of scale may be ignored.

* Mr. D. E. Hutchins, formerly of the Indian, Cape Colony, and other African Forest Services, has been in New Zealand during the past year at the invitation of the Government, for whom he is preparing a comprehensive report on the forests and forestry-of the Dominion.' - The substance of the present article was given by Mr. Hutchins as an address at the inaugural meeting of the New Zealand Forestry League, held at Wellington, nth July, 1916. —Editor.