SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL FORESTRY FOR NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XIII, Issue 5, 20 November 1916, Page 375

SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL FORESTRY FOR NEW ZEALAND.

Concluded.

D. E. Hutchins,

F.R.G.S.

COMPARATIVE VALUE OF FOREST PLANTATIONS AND NATIVE FORESTS.

The area of the New Zealand Government forest . plantations, reckoned up to 31st March, 1916, is 27,217 acres. The plantations have cost £361,097, or an average rate of £l3 ss. 4d. per acre. With the plantations as they are (little insignis pine, no great area of eucalypts, and a large area of larch, ponderosa, and Laricio pines, together with set-backs from fires and the repairing of mistakes) I do not think we can assume a higher average yearly timber-yield than 100 cubic feet per acre. This is somewhat more than the yield figure suggested in the. last yearly forest report of the Lands Department, page 3. Better forestry presently, we hope, will double this figure; but as an average figure for that which is planted I scarcely think it will be safe to go higher than 80 cub. ft., or at the most 100 cub. ft. (= 1,200 ft. sup.). This point is ' discussed in my report on New Zealand forestry now under preparation. It would not affect the main issue if one took the yield at 120 or even 150 cub. ft. per acre per year (Acrim). In 1906 a timber-mill census of New Zealand conducted by the Lands Department gave the total mill-output as 432,000,000 ft. sup. There was in 1913 an excess of timber exports over imports amounting to a little' over 13,000,000 ft. sup., so that, according to the timber-census figures of 1906 the net yearly consumption of timber in New Zealand is about 419,000,000 ft. sup. In the last annual forest report the Lands Department estimates the yearly New Zealand consumption of timber at 360,000,000 ft. sup. (== 30,000,000 cub. ft.) per year. The Forest Commission of 1913 adopted the same figures. To make the best of a bad case I will take the lower figure. With an average yearly yield per acre of 100 cub. ft. (1,200 ft. sup.) the yearly production of timber in the New Zealand plantations is thus 27,217 acres X 100 yield cubic feet, or 32,780,400 ft. sup. So that in their present , state the plantations are producing equal to t one-eleventh of the yearly consumption of timber in New Zealand or, in other- words, ■to produce

a yearly growth of timber equal to the present yearly consumption of timber in New Zealand eleven times the present total plantation expenditure would be required. The present plantations have cost to date £361,097. Eleven times that figure is £3,972,067. Therefore, in round numbers, four millions’ worth of the present class of planting would be required to provide for the yearly consumption of timber in New Zealand at the present rate. This, however, is not the whole of the story. It will take an average of at least forty years for the plantation timber to mature, so that, allowing compound interest at 4 per cent, for forty years, the four millions become £19,200,000. After forty years it would be uncertain whether the £19,200,000 expenditure would have to be repeated, or whether, as in the native forest, natural regeneration could be depended upon. I put forward these figures not as showing that forest-planting is impossible in New Zealand, but to indicate what happens when attempting to carry out the crude idea of the “ man in the street ” that forestry consists in cutting down one tree and planting another. As a rule the forester looks on planting as a last resort, and in New Zealand, with labour as high as ‘ it is, ~he may come to regard it as a surgical operationonly to be resorted to when every attempt to get natural regeneration has failed. A little • reflection will show that this must be so. Every tree selected by the forester for felling rejuvenates the forest and brings in revenue; every tree planted costs something, • and that something goes on piling up compound interest at 4 per cent." for a term of years till the tree is ripe for cutting. - To destroy the. existing forests of New Zealand and replace them entirely by plantations looking on the matter purely as one of pounds shillings and pence— cost New Zealand something between nineteen millions sterling and nineteen millions plus the cost of regeneration at the end of some forty years. And this, as we have seen, is •to provide only for the needs in timber of the present small population. The nineteen millions does nothing to meet the loss of the natural export trade in softwoods to Australia, or the serious injury to such New Zealand industries as might be expected to develop with increasing population and national forestry, such as furniture and paper making, tanneries, &c. The question of plantations versus natural forest was stated judicially by the late Inspector-General of Forests, India (the highest forest official in the British Empire), when he visited Victoria and reported on its forestry to the Victorian Government. He said, “ Planting on a large scale is costly, and it will be found, if an accurate ledger is kept of the original outlay and all its incidental expenses, that artificial-forest cultivation will repay the money and

time spent on it only under very exceptional circumstances.” A calculation is given in my Australian forest report showing that if the area of the forest reserves in Victoria and New South Wales (small enough areas too) were to be cut down and replanted, the cost, with compound interest for eighty years at 4 per cent., would amount to the enormous sum of £3,105,000,000. This is the sort of venture that New Zealand has embarked upon in proposing to destroy its native forests and replace them by plantations.

FOREST FINANCE IN NEW ZEALAND.

The gross expenditure on forestry in New Zealand from 1896, when the plantations were begun, must now be upwards of half a million sterling. As previously stated, the Government plantations have cost up to last March £361,097, and it is probable that quite one-third of this expenditure has been ineffective owing to the absence of skilled direction. Besides the Government direct plantation expenditure, about £BB,OOO has been spent on scenic reserves, together with an unknown sum on the railway plantations, Selwyn Board plantations, and private plantations on the Canterbury Plains, &c. It is true that the last two items are local-government and private expenditure, but they, equally with the national expenditure, have suffered from the absence of the ordinary scientific forestry of other countries. Is there another instance anywhere of a country spending such a sum on a highly technical subject without technical advice ? Such a procedure runs counter to all modern practice, which tends more and more towards specialization in each subject. The yearly expenditure on forestry is now over £40,000. For 1915-16 the official returns show a forest expenditure of £30,318 on the Government plantations, and an expenditure of £7,878 on the scenic reserves, a total of £38,205. If we include the pay of officials of the Lands Department who are doing forest work, it is evident that the present forest expenditure of New Zealand must be well over £40,000 per year. There is also a certain part of the expenditure of the Tourist Department which would come into the forest department in other countries. For its annual forestry expenditure of over £40,000 all the practical forestry that New Zealand gets is a yearly additional planting .of two .or three thousand acres to a totally insufficient present area of. 27,217 acres of forest plantations, and some inspection of the scenic reserve forestsfor there is virtually no fencing, systematic fire-protection, or other practical work to protect the forests in general. . Beyond collecting a slender forest revenue practically nothing is done for the natural forests of the’ country. -

. South Africa has just three times the New Zealand forestry expenditure, for which it . gets a completely equipped Forest Department, a sound system of forestry, and some 18,000 acres of forest planting yearly, or . over six times the yearly planting of New Zealand. The total area of the Government forest plantations in South Africa is about two-thirds larger than that of the New Zealand plantations. In 1883 there was only a nominal Forest Department in South Africa and a nominal forest revenue. .

' For the sixteen years previous to the outbreak of war . there was in New Zealand a total forest revenue of £609,378 (Lands Department pamphlet, 1914). - During recent years the forest revenue has varied between £30,000 and £60,000 a year. For the year before the war broke out it was £29,771. Of the total forest revenue since 1898-99, about half has been expended on the forest plantations. A considerable portion of the forest revenue, over £lOO,OOO (Lands Department pamphlet, 1914, p.- 20), has been paid to local bodies for the upkeep of their - roads. In a large sense we must look on this merely as defective book-keeping. The whole forest revenue and . a considerable forest loan should have been expended ’in putting the forests in order. The delay in spending the second half of the . forest expenditure when it was so urgently required to put the forest estates into order will cause an eventual loss that it is impossible

to calculate or even roughly estimate. New - Zealand -at present, -cutting about twenty-five times the

quantity of timber that South Africa does, has a forest revenue amounting to only about half that of South Africa, which is £57> 000 (1912-13). It is a repetition of the Australian experience of a nominal Forest Department and a nominal forest revenue, or a real Forest Department and a real forest revenue. In Australia, whenever an effective Forest Department has been established it has paid for itself many times over within a few years. In Victoria the forest revenue rose from £17,000 to close on £70,000 in ten years. The forest revenue of New South Wales rose from £lO,OOO in 1901 to £95,000 in eleven years. And these Forest Departments are. not yet fully equipped and organized as in Europe and' South Africa.

It is fairly certain that an effective Forest Department in New Zealand would double or treble the forest revenue in a few years, or, even ,as in New South Wales, increase the revenue tenfold. One hears on every side , stories- of waste in the forest.- It has been stated on good authority that as much kauri has been burnt ■or spoilt by fire as has. passed through the sawmills. - I have- already mentioned that the kauri timber burnt and partially wasted in one forest, the Puhipuhi, has been valued at three millions sterling.

In spite of a forest expenditure which, though small, is too large to waste, and a certain forest revenue, the first steps have not yet been taken in ordinary forestry organization in New Zealand. Forest demarcation, which was almost finished in Victoria three years ago, has not yet been started in New Zealand. New South Wales expects to finish the bulk of its forest demarcations this year. South Australia demarcated its forest reserves many years ago. Not only has New Zealand not begun its forest demarcation,* but it has not yet framed a forest Act worthy of the name. Even the weak State Forest Act' (No. 184 of 1908) remains a dead-letter. Of State forests in the ordinary sense of the word not an acre has yet been constituted. The forest school contemplated ■in the Forest Act remains on paper only. There is not in New Zealand a trained forester in the European or American sense.

FOREST EMPLOYMENT.

; Nothing, I may repeat, has yet been done in New Zealand to develop with forests and small farms the mountain lands as in the Vosges Mountains and Black Forest areas. As mentioned, these mountain - forest areas in Europe are, many of them, giving an average net return of £2 10s. .an acre. This, it must be remembered, is the mean net yearly yield of the forest over the whole area, not the yield from an acre of forest at the end of eighty or ninety years. It is more than the returns of ordinary grazing-farms; it may exceed the net yield from many cultivated lands. These valuable European mountain forests go with small farms in the valleys and the opening-up of the country with good mountain-roads.

Land so developed . gives much employment. The average employment in the forests of Bavaria is one man per 130 acres of forest. The employment afforded in other cultivated European forests is discussed in my recent report on Australian forestry. Besides the employment in the forest there is the employment in working up the forest-produce. In these European forest valleys are timber and pulp mills giving employment to a large industrial population. Statistics show over seven hundred pulp-mills in Germany; in England two only, and these fed by imported timber 1 The pulptrees are spruce, silver- and poplar, all three growing well in New Zealand almost wherever they have been planted,. and spreading naturally in the native forests when once introduced and cared-for by foresters.

The introduction of systematic forestry now would be opportune. There is certain to be -much demand for employment after the war,.

if not . sooner. In South Africa, after the . Boer War, the Government had .to find work for a large number .of white men left stranded with the cessation of war conditions. and the large special expenditure. The unemployed were found work partly on railwayconstruction and partly .on forestry. . Even for the weaklings and alcoholics light work was found in the timber . plantationsthinning, bark-stripping, weeding nurseries, &c. . . ■

■ For forest-development -in New Zealand there ,is work of an extensive character, and in the country away from town . temptations. For the able-bodied, roadmaking, ring-barking for natural regeneration, the formation 'of grassed .fire-lines, .the putting-up of rough buildings at “forest stations,” the preparation .of strips of land for the introduction of choice self-spreading exotic timbers. For the maimed there is light work in the forest nurseries, and for those still strong on their legs employment as rangers, foresters, and forestdemarcation assistants. . :

FOREST DEMARCATION.

.It is preferable that forest demarcation should be done by the Forest Department,, since it. is mainly an estimate of the..timbergrowing capability of land. Following the practice of other countries, there should be a survey branch of. the Forest . Department, occupied at first with . forest demarcations and then with forest “ workingplans.” In this way the knowledge of the forest gained in the first work is useful for the second. Both demarcation and working-plans are necessary before a wild forest can be brought under systematic treatment. The want of working-plans,, however, need not stay development-work after the war, or. as soon as work is wanted for returned soldiers or State pensioners; but forest demarcation is urgent, and cannot be delayed. One cannot start developing a forest without boundaries.

. Whenever forest demarcation is contentious —and there is always at certain places a conflict between local and national interests the disputed demarcation-lines should be settled by the highest independent authority available. . In demarcating the eastern forest districts of ~. Cape Colony there was a sharp conflict over . native rights. The Assistant Surveyor-General was then sent up from Cape Town to act. as arbitrator. That was thirty-three years ago, and the demarcation-lines have stood unquestioned since. In 1911,.. in British East Africa, there was again contentious matter over native rights.. The Deputy Governor, of the colony then came .out into camp, and mile by . mile (acre by acre in. some places) settled the final demarcation-lines. Here the forest was on the highlands and similar to that of South Africa and New Zealand. . ..

■ Australian forestry has long since been looked upon as the worst in the civilized world. Compared to its size, Australia never had any large area of good forest, and owing to the want of forest demarcation the.greater portion of that has been destroyed with the larger area of worthless forest. A calculation in my “ Australian Forestry ” gives official figures showing that the loss to that country from the present bad forestry at the end of thirty years will amount, with interest at 4 per cent., to somewhere near £588,000,000. Thirty years is taken because that would be the least time within which the i forests might be got into working - order. Australia is paying three millions and a half yearly for imported timber now, and five millions is the estimate for a few years ahead. “ Demarcate, demarcate,” said every Indian forester who visited Australia in the “ seventies ” and “ eighties,” but the advice fell on deaf ears. The penalty is now being paid.

Nevertheless, Australia has at last made . considerable advance in forest demarcation. In Victoria 4,000,000 acres have now been definitely demarcated and set aside as the national forests. New South Wales expects to have 5,000,000 acres similarly demarcated at the end of this year. South Australia, besides demarcation, has a good forest-redemption Act, and is gradually buying back areas that were lost owing to want of forest demarcation in the bad old days of no forestry. Queensland and West Australia have at the head of their forest administrations fully trained and qualified professional foresters, and naturally they are doing all that is possible to forward forest demarcation in their States. It is only Tasmania that is like New Zealand in not yet having begun forest demarcation.

The example of reckless forest alienation and destruction in North America has doubtless had an unfortunate influence. on the forest policy of New Zealand. But the United States of . America began forest demarcation on a large scale in the early days of President Roosevelt’s administration, and now thinks it has reached the limit of its forest destruction with eleven, thirty-eighths, or nearly one-third, of its total area still under forest (Professors Moon and Brown in “Elements of Forestry, 1915”). Of its total forest area 21 per cent, is “ national forest ” under the management 'of the Forest Department. It is thus clear that in spite of all the reckless destruction of forest that has taken place the United States to-day is in a far better position than New Zealand. The United. States has been buying back one forest area, the Southern Appalachians, at a cost of about half a million sterling yearly. This is the penalty,, in one locality only, for having had no forest demarcation in the past.,

Japan, so similar in many respects to. New Zealand, has given the forestry question a most careful consideration, sending missions abroad to study forest management, and then spending a quarter of a million sterling yearly (somewhere near one million at New Zealand rates of labour) to organize its national forests. Its forest demarcation was accomplished within a few years of its becoming a civilized Power. In India forest demarcation was a big business that required some ten or twelve years to accomplish. As in all countries with national forests, small adjustments of boundaries are still taking place. I had to do with Indian forest demarcations between 1872 and 1880.

As soon as I arrived in South Africa I was sent out to demarcate forest in British Kaffraria, a beautiful mountainous country of rolling grassy downs and broken forest closely resembling that of New Zealand. Here I pitched my camp and spent a year or two demarcating the forest, which was -being steadily destroyed by the Kaffirs on one side and white colonists on the other. The demarcation pulled up the forest-destroyers with a sharp turn. As soon as they got on the wrong side of a demarcationline- with axe, cattle, or fires there was a visit from the local forester and an appearance in the Magistrate's Court. The story is told in my recent ' report on forestry to the West Australian Government, together with other details regarding forest demarcation generally. In our newest colony, British East Africa, as soon as the pax

Britannica was established a qualified forest officer was obtained from India and the forests demarcated.' Then, after a few years, came the rush of white settlers, and I was sent up from South Africa during the years 1907 to 1911 to put in a more detailed and final demarcation.

AREA OF DEMARCATED FOREST REQUIRED FOR NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand should obviously be a self-contained country in forestry. The one neighbouring country, Australia, can only supply hardwoods, and nine-tenths of -the world's use of timber is softwood. In Europe the> countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, that, owing to misgovernment, lost their national forests have now to pay a heavy toll to other countries for imported timber. England before the. war was paying £43,000,000 yearly for imported timber. There are other countries, again, which have an excess of forest, and, lastly, countries which are self-contained and able to supply their own wants with perhaps some little excess or want of timber. France, Austria, Switzerland, and most of the German States are in this class.

It is these last countries that are useful to take as guides for a new country, such as New Zealand, demarcating its forests. And here

we see that on. an area basis it is found economical to have about one-fourth of the area under forest, and on a population- basis roughly. 1 acre per head. The latter is a rough approximation, since much depends on the quality of the ; forest and the civilization of the country. The general rule holds that the more civilized and populous the country the greater is the use, per capita, of timber and the better the forestry and quality, of the forest. The proportion of forest prevailing along the Rhine and in the best part of central Europe is well seen ;in .the.large-scale war map now obtainable at the: booksellers’ shops in New Zealand. Forbes, in his interesting study :of . European forestry, works out an average of 1 acre of good forest per. inhabitant. , •.

On a population basis and an average of 1. acre of good forest per head, New Zealand for. a population of twenty millions would require 20,000 acres of demarcated forest; and it is impossible to anticipate a population of much less than twenty millions within the next hundred years for a country so richly endowed as New Zealand. It. will-be remembered that forestry has to . look forward at least a hundred ■ years, and that . any excess of timber in New Zealand can be profitably sent to Australia, where certainly for the next hundred years . the : present very large . demand for softwoods will continue. Australia to-day is . importing yearly three and a half millions' sterling worth of. softwoods, of which New Zealand, only supplies half a -million’s worth.

If we consider . the European . standard from an area point of view, New Zealand ; would ‘require .25 per cent, of its area under forest, or a demarcated area of 17,000,000. acres. Thus, economically, and on the standard of the most advanced States of Continental Europe, New Zealand should have something between 17,000,000 and 20,000,000 acres, of demarcated forest. The European standard forest area, it must be remembered, is the outcome of centuries of trial and conflicting interests ; and the result is that one-fourth of the area under forest is -the proportion found most useful in the best populated and most industrial parts. ; ■ ■

FOREST REDEMPTION . AND DEVELOPMENT

In view of the comparatively small area of native forest now left to New Zealand, demarcation will naturally have to be carried out in the most liberal sense towards the forest areas, and it should be accompanied by the buying-back of alienated forest land whenever prices will allow of this being done. Special legislation would be required, and there might be a redemption fund for this purpose, as in Victoria and in South Australia. The French forest ■ budget contains yearly an item of 1,000,000 francs (£40,000) for forest re-

demption. The Conservator of Forests, Queensland (a trained forestry University graduate), considers, I believe, that forest redemption there is generally preferable to forest plantations. This is doubtless equally true in New Zealand.

It may be asked how forest-development is to be paid for. The answer is, with the money going out of the country for imported timber (soon to be doubled or trebled with the failure of the forest and increase of population) ; . with the employment that goes with

work in the cultivated forest; with the cheap raw material for the house-building, furniture, carpentering, tanning, and paper trades ; and with some certain reduction in the cost of living.

There must naturally be a forest loan to develop and improve the forest. Such a loan, leaving out all indirect advantages, would certainly yield a return above that of railways or most other public works. Japan spent many years developing and organizing its forests, and the money was mostly obtained by the sale of surplus forest land. New Zealand has taken this money for other purposes, so that a loan now is required to restore the balance.

ARBORICULTURE FOR FARMERS.

Not very much can be done at present for farmers by the State in New Zealand with only four forest nurseries, no seed-store, only the beginnings of a Forest Department, and no general system of forestry throughout the Dominion as in other countries. Nevertheless, a good beginning has been made, and the Lands Department’s Forestry Branch is doing its best under the circumstances. There is an undeveloped mine of wealth in arboriculture for farmers in New Zealand. In these latitudes in Europe the trees of the field (not forest or orchard trees) often yield as much as the crops or grass on the ground.

In South Africa arboriculture for farmers and national forestry have gone hand-in-hand for the last thirty-three years,. each helping the other. There are 143 Government forest nurseries, large ' and small, all of which, issue trees, to farmers.; and there is a Government seed-store issuing authentic tree-seed. The ' operations of the store, too, are purely in seed from the Government plantations, or rare forest seed from abroad ; so that it does not interfere with the ordinary nurseryman and seedsman’s business. In fact, nurserymen buy seed from it for retail. In the year 1912-13 59,000 lb. of seed was sold to the public at an average price of nd. per pound. The last year before the war there was issued to the public five and a quarter million, young trees valued at £14,000, an average price, say, of ss. per hundred. It is perhaps a mistake that prices have been raised .recently. Any one may purchase trees from any forest nursery, even from the small temporary nurseries in the “ bush.” Near the capital, at Pretoria, is a large forest nursery maintained solely for the requirements of the public. The issue of plants and seeds from the nurseries and store is on the principle of cost price, without any restrictions or regulations. The prices include delivery to the nearest' railway station or siding. The Railway Department water the young plants if they show signs of wanting it. There is a good “Tree-planting for Farmers” pamphlet.

South Australia has been distributing young trees to farmers for the last thirty-three years (as long, in fact, as South Africa), and has spent over £55,000 in doing this good work.

It is somewhat doubtful whether the present State nurseries in New Zealand (nurseries of British character in the latitude of Spain), good though they are, are the best for the country. The percentage of failures shown in the Government planting returns is not large; but, on the other hand, one hears of a good many trees sent to farmers of which the planting has failed in careful and experienced hands. It has been asked why the common silver-fir of Europe is absent from the Government plantations. It has failed, lam told ; but it has succeeded in Mr. T. W. Adams’s more difficult Canterbury planting, both as regards' -growth and natural regeneration. There are statements from private planters that the young open-root trees from the' Government nurseries will never give the best results. It must be remembered that the New Zealand climate has temperatures running with those of France, but the sun is the sun of Spain and Italy. Wellington, Rome, and Madrid are practically in the same latitude actually the latitude, on the world’s surface where, at midsummer, occurs the mathematical “ maximum of insolation.” Go Polewards, the sun loses in power; go Equatorwards, the days become shorter. Thus it happens that tree-planting in New Zealand has to face trying days in quite early spring before the young trees have become established, and there are no “ pot-and-pan ” plants for doing this. In South Africa, where tree-planting is more difficult than in New Zealand, nearly all the young trees, whether for Government or for private work, are rooted and sent out in tins gathered from the rubbish-heaps, or in old kerosene-tins collected for the purpose.

CONSERVATIVE LUMBERING. It is necessary here to say a word as to. what is meant by the forestry that cuts the timber and conserves the forest, and I. cannot do better than quote the words of Gifford Pinchot, the “ father of American forestry,” as he has been termed by a well-known French forester:—

The products of the forest are among the things which civilized men cannot do without. Wood is needed for building, for fuel, for paper-pulp, and for unnumbered other uses, and trees must be cut down to supply it. It would be both useless and mistaken to try to stop the cutting of timber, for it could not cease without great injury not to the lumbermen (millers) only, but to all the people of the nation. The question is not of saving the trees, for every tree must inevitably die, but of saving the forest by conservative ways of cutting the trees. If the forest is to be preserved, the timber crop how ripe must be gathered in such a way as to make sure of other crops hereafter. ... It will

be easier to do so when the methods and advantages of conservative lumbering, which is forestry, are better known to the American lumbermen, and are therefore in more general use. . . . German methods would be as much out. of place in America as American methods in Germany. What American foresters should do and are doing is to combine the general principles of forestry, which are true all the world over, with American methods of lumbering. (“ A Primer of Forestry,” Government Printing Office, Washington, 1909.)

This was written seven years ago. Since then forestry has advanced steadily and rapidly in the United States of America. Its recent developments are well known.

Forty years ago beekeepers destroyed the bees to get the honey; then came modern beekeeping, in which the beekeeper gets his honey and preserves his bees. It is the same story with modern forestry ; the forester gets the timber and preserves the forest.

A little reflection will show how easily that can be done—when you know how. In nature the old tree gradually decays, falls, and its place is taken by young trees around (the advance growth of foresters), or by the germination of dormant seed in the ground when light is let into the forest by the fall of the old tree. Suppose man comes and cuts the old tree before it goes to decay, there are the same young trees around or dormant seed in the forest to take its place. The more of the, older trees that can be cut at one time without unduly interfering with the reproduction of the forest the better for the mill, for the forest, and for the work of the Forest Department. Just how far one can go in the cutting-down the forester has to find out, and to arrange his working - plans accordingly. That may be said to be the chief object of his life’s work : it takes long study.

In New Zealand forests there will be jardinage or “ selection ” fellings in climatic or exposed areas, and a twenty- to forty-years rotation cutting, as in the Cape Colony forests, in more accessible areas, under more intensive working. A forty-years rotation would probably be getting on to thin ice in a New Zealand forest. The clean-cutting of Australian forest management would be disastrous in a New Zealand forest.

FORESTRY AND GRAZING. When forestry and pasture occupy the same class of ground the employment— average pasture and average forest in Englandis about • one man pasture to fifteen, men forest. In New Zealand, where. the forest-growth is more rapid and the sheep look more after themselves, the comparison is still more in favour of the forest. Said the,Report of the Departmental Committee on Forestry in

Scotland (December, 1911), “ Forests of the same size give ten times as much employment as sheep-farms, without reckoning the population absorbed in attendant industries, which might in many cases treble that figure.” Said the General Federation of Trades-unions, Great Britain, 1911, in urging the adoption of State forestry to add to the productiveness and population of rural districts, “ Sheepfarming employs only one man per 1,000 acres.” The (British) Coast Erosion Parliamentary Committee quoted one man per 1,500 acres as a general average for sheep, and one man per 100 acres for forest, including planting.

With the high cost of labour in New Zealand, and planting only here and there in the native forests, one may perhaps average the employment at about one man per 300 acres for accessible welldeveloped forests.

Putting aside the question of relative employment, it is probable that in New Zealand even the actual amount of pasture would be greater in well-developed mountain forest than on poor mountain grassed lands when these have got into a leached-out condition and become invaded by noxious weeds. Forest, it must never be forgotten, tends perpetually to conserve the fertility of the soil, so that there is good grass in every opening of the forest.

When I compare the broad grassy drives and paths in the ordinary European cultivated forest, where they hunt deer with hounds and horses, ■ with the thin grazing and thick fern, gorse, and scrub on so much of the New Zealand mountain and hill land, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the mountain areas of New Zealand, developed with good forest and small mountain farms on the European plan, would in the end actually carry more grazing than at present. The Governor-General of Australia in a recent speech advocated very broad grassed lines for the difficult fireprotection in Australia. Wherever there was any notable danger from fire in New Zealand there would be similar broad grassy lines. The Conservator of Forests, South Australia, where there is a complete system of fire-paths in the timber plantations, reckons an average of one-tenth the area under fire-paths. In South African forest plantations the ratio is more.

Then, again, as soon as the forest becomes regularized it offers large areas which, as they grow up out of reach of damage from grazing animals, are in these latitudes best thrown open to grazing, so as to keep down the inflammable undergrowth and assist in getting rid of the side branches from the tree-trunks. In the model forest of Leiria, in Portugal, I saw large flocks, even of goats. This is done to keep down the undergrowth and lessen the danger from fire in the inflammable pine forest. -

In India, so , great is the usefulness of the forest. as a grazing reserve in times of famine that it has been declared that forestry in India was worth all that it has cost if only for the value of the grazing in the forest - during times of drought.

FORESTRY SOCIETIES ABROAD.

It has for some time been seen in Australia that, owing to want of forestry, there is a yearly increasing economic loss, which amounts in the aggregate to an enormous sum. Lately, when drawing up a report on forestry for the West Australian Government, I took out the official figures, and this is what they show : When the war broke out the average timber importation to Australia was valued at three and a half millions yearly. The timber-export trade had not increased for some years, and amounted altogether to barely one million, while there was a two-and-a-half-millions importation of hardwood to Europe, which Australia with better forestry might have filled. Then there is the shrinkage in the home supplies of timber, making house-building and railways dearer, fencing-timber for farmers more costly, and causing indirect loss to various industries. Altogether,' it is shown by official statistics that when the war broke out the want of good forestry was costing Australia at the least some eight millions yearly.

This position of affairs has ~ led to the formation of an Australian forest league, which had its origin in' the following resolution passed by the Inter-State Conference on Forestry held in Sydney in November, 1911 : That early steps be taken in each State to found an association for the advancement of forestry, to be styled the Australian Forestry League, the draft articles of association of such league to be drawn by local committees in each State. This was accordingly done, and the first general meeting of the League took, place at Melbourne in November, 1914, the Governor-General of Australia presiding. I had the good fortune to be present at this meeting. The Australian Forestry League has at present but a small subscription of 5 s - per annum. It is hoped* this may be increased and a League periodical issued. . . . .

Other Australian associations that bring forward forestry matters from time to time are . the. Australian Natives Association, , the Million Club, and. various Chambers. of Commerce.. So far none, pf these associations . has done • anything .in the nature of exacting pledges from members of ' Parliament that a patriotic forest policy be. insisted on, . but .they. are .constantly bringing forest matters before the. public and the Government.. The most consistent advocate of forestry in Australia has been the Melbourne Age newspaper.

In response to its strenuous admonitions the Premier of Victoria at the last elections sketched an extensive forestry programme.

In the United Kingdom, besides various small forest societies, there are two important ones with quarterly and half-yearly journals the English Arboricultural Society, with a quarterly journal, and the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, with a half-yearly journal termed “ Transactions.” The ordinary subscription to each of these societies is 10s.

In Japan forest societies are numerous, and are recognized officially by the Government in the way that benefit societies and trade-unions are recognized in English communities. Indeed, a man living in the forest districts of Japan suffers certain civil disabilities unless he belongs to one or other of the forest societies.

There is an active Canadian Forestry. Association in Canada, where public opinion requires a great deal of educating. The association inserts articles and cartoons in the newspapers, and distributes thousands of booklets designed to meet the prejudices and opinions of the various sections of the community.

In the United States the American Forestry Association is doingexcellent work. Its journal, American Forestry, surpasses that of all other forest societies.

There are forest societies in all European countries, particularly the most democratic nations, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and more recently Spain and Italy. The Touring Club of France is a powerful and wide-reaching organization, which for years has had an active forestry propaganda. It was under its auspices that was held in Paris in 1913 the great gathering of foresters from every quarter of the world except Germany.

THE NEW ZEALAND FORESTRY LEAGUE. It is obviously important at this juncture that there •be a forestry society in New Zealand, whose function should be twofold—(i) to gradually educate public opinion on forestry, (2) to see that no hasty action, due to the play of party politics, be allowed to pass unnoticed and interfere with the great far-reaching interests of the country in its national forestry. For this double purpose it will be necessary to issue forestry leaflets from time to time, and presently to establish a New Zealand journal of forestry after the model of the forest societies' journals of other countries. This is admirably done in Belgium, where membership of the forest society (of which I am a member, together with its magazine, costs Bs. per -year.. i Party politics, like all human institutions, have their good and bad points; and, unfortunately, national forestry in a new country nearly always comes in for most of the bad points. While the national forests of a country are in the melting-pot watchfulness is

ever necessary. The danger passes as public opinion strengthens and institutions crystallize. In France and Belgium party politics run very high, but neither Clericals nor Liberals would think for a moment of touching the national forest estates. The tendency is to increase the national forests whenever funds are available.

The New Zealand Forestry League should have for its watchwords “ Immediate forest demarcation, and a forest loan and forestdevelopment after the war.” This would mean that the unnecessary destruction of forest would be arrested forthwith, and finally come to an end with the development of the forest, on modern lines, after the war. It would mean the opening-up of a certain amount of valley land for returned soldiers, and the provision of a good deal of employment in forest-development and roadmaking after the war, when employment is certain to be in great need.

It ■ is scarcely reasonable to suppose that poor and steep mountain forest land can be developed in the same way as the rich lands of the plains where nature has been so prodigal. The history of' land-development in the wet, mountainous forest-regions of southern Victoria shows this only too clearly a destruction of national forest wealth to an appalling extent, and impoverished settlers who could not live, as soon as the fertile ash of the burnt forest was exhausted. But, as we have seen, Victoria has now turned that page of its history.

By “ State forests” is to be understood forests that are inalienably the property of the State and managed by a State Forest Department for national purposes, usually the production of timber. New Zealand has no State forests in this sense, no organized Forest Department, and ' only a fraction of its legitimate forest revenue. It has followed the erroneous policy of destroying its beautiful and valuable natural • forests, thinking to replace them by plantations of exotics which, to furnish only the present consumption of timber, would cost ■ the country at the rate of £19,000,000 for each crop of timber, less what reproduction can be secured by natural regeneration. • This, as I have shown, is on the basis of the actual expenditure (plus interest at 4 per cent.) on the present forest plantations. The cost would be reducible (1) by sparser planting, and growing only the coarser kinds of timber in the plantations, as is being done in Australia; (2) by avoiding the fire and other losses that have' occurred owing to want of technical knowledge.

As the ideal to which the New Zealand Forest League should direct special attention, I must again, at the cost of repetition, mention once more the mountain lands of the Vosges and Black Forest, on each side of the Rhine Valley in Europe, where every acre except the mountain-tops is rich forest or fair farm land; where the forest gives a net revenue up to £4 16s. per acre, and £2 10s. per

acre over considerable areas ; and where living is cheaper than in any white man’s country that I know. The climate and trees there are the climate and plantable trees of the South Island of New Zealand.

New Zealand . has never, seriously considered the forest question, which has been looked on as 'an amiable fad. In a democratic country - the Government, . naturally, Will • not deal thoroughly with the forest question without a mandate from the people; and the mass of the people know nothing about forestry in New Zealand as compared to forestry in other countries. That is why New Zealand, wants its forest league.

. • • SUMMARY. To summarize: It is unthinkable that New Zealand, naturally a . richly endowed- forest country, should,' in the future, have to import its. timber from Australia or the Northern Hemisphere. The economic loss of doing so, with; such bulky material, would be enormous. Dependence on imported timber, moreover, would materially increase the cost of living. Half the beauty, too, of this fair ' land would be gone if the forests were destroyed. There would also be a loss of population, and that, too, some of the pick of the manhood of the country; for. the timber-milling industry, which still employs directly more hands than any other industry in New Zealand, would vanish, and the- house-building, furnituremaking, and tanning industries, also the prospective paper industry, would all be heavily handicapped with the dearness of their raw material. Lost, too, would be all-the work such as now takes place in the cultivated forests of Europe, amounting in the best-developed parts of continental Europe to employment at the average rate of about one family per 130 acres.

To destroy the natural forest and replace it by artificial timber plantations would cost more than New Zealand with all its natural wealth could afford and this only to find timber for the present population. . That the native forests can be worked and preserved is shown by the experience of South Africa, which has been working its native forest scientifically and gradually improving it for the last thirty-three years. The native forest of South Africa closely resembles the- New Zealand “bush”;, they are both forests of the dense evergreen class, the majority of the best trees belonging to the genus Podocarpus. South Africa has spent, with interest, about two millions and a quarter on forestry, and that is a good investment if it stops one million and a quarter from going out of the country yearly for imported timber. . ,

But the forest-clad mountains of New Zealand are being turned into sheep and cattle runs. The returns from the sheep and cattle

they carry is but small compared to the loss of the national forests and the forest-working population. Too often when the ashes .of the burnt forest are washed out there remains not even poor pasture, but only a waste of scrub or weeds, suggesting a good land-settle-ment pushed to a disastrous extreme..

For . the present absence of a forest policy in New Zealand it is entirely unjust to blame the Government, which naturally in a democratic country can only reflect public opinion. Sir Julius Vogel’s forest policy was in advance of public opinion and fell with him. The Forest Bill he introduced was a good one, but Parliament whittled it down to the. present ineffective Forest Act. The Lands Department in New -Zealand has raised a warning hand more than once, and its forest statistics have shown from time to time the grave dangers aheadparticularly the annual reports for 1907 and 1908. If there has been a cash expenditure of half a million on amateur forestry in New Zealand and one-third of that money practically wasted the Government cannot be blamed. There has been always a careful administration . of public funds, but the system has been an impossible one. One might as well expect to succeed in building a railway without engineers. But this loss is as nothing compared to the many million pounds’ worth of good forest that has been destroyed indiscriminately and without demarcation.

Public opinion on a national forest policy is practically nonexistent in New Zealand at present. What other countries are doing with their forests is known to but a few. He who joins the forestry league and helps to make it known is a patriot who deserves well of his country.

Those who may hesitate about joining another society should take up the forestry league for a couple of years ; for it looks as if the next two years would be the critical , time for New -Zealand forests, deciding whether New Zealand is going to save its forests with demarcation and a Forest Department, or sink to the level of a country without national forests.

The forests of New Zealand are still capable of restoration, but they are dwindling daily. The war and after-war labour conditions, connected with the returning soldiers, seem to offer during the next two years a last chance for the successful development of the native forests of the Dominion.

In the first part of the above article (October Journal, p. 299) it was stated that the South African yellow-woods grew to diameters up to 22 ft. This should have been lift.

The address of the New Zealand Forestry League is P.O. Box 783, Wellington—Mr. E. C. Jack, Hon. Secretary. The annual subscription is £1 for members and los. for associates. ' .

• * Preliminary action for the • demarcation, of the Waipoua Forest has now been taken.