Forests for Canterbury.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18417, 25 June 1925, Page 8

Forests for Canterbury.

There was a good deal in the addresses on forestry made yesterday to the Progress League which was not new, though it was worth saying again. But there were two points especially which we hope all our readers will think about. There was the fact stressed by the Conservator of Forests that "through the propaganda and "general activities of the Service, a "forest consciousness has been aroused "in the minds of the public of the "Dominion''; a fact that may really be accepted now after nearly thirty years of effort. The people of the Dominion may not be doing much yet as individuals to cover its waste sjiaees with trees, but they at least agree that something should be done, and realise as they have never realised before that tree-planting is at once good business and sound patriotism. And in addition to that general point Mr Morrison drove home the particular fact that Canterbury requires very much more timber relatively than the other provinces, and is producing very much less. Precisely what 200 million feet a year would mean, very few people can pretend to realise, though that is the official estimate of our future requirements; but Ave can understand what is meant by saying that Canterbury consumes, and will go on consuming, a fifth of the timber used by the Dominion in each year*. It means that Ave require almost as much timber for general purposes as all the rest of the South Island taken together, and this has to be thought of in conjunction Avith the further fact that in thirty years there will be a serious shortage of usable timber over the whole Dominion. We have said that planting trees is both profitable and patriotic; ■ but because the second virtue is discovered a good deal sooner than the first, the middle generation of the thi'ee now living has usually been content to thank God for its treeloving parents. No other province during the last fifty years has been served better by enthusiasts or worse by the mass of the population, and it is this neglect of the majority that we shall have to pay for during the third quarter of the present century. It is to be hoped that no one Avill be able to say in 1955 that the people of 1925 demanded schools of forestry but did not plant out their Avaste lands.