BOX TIMBER.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20093, 24 November 1930, Page 13

BOX TIMBER.

GROWING INDUSTRY IN NELSON. FINE PINE PLANTATIONS. The -way in which the demand for fruit cases, cheese crates, and petrol cases has made for a big advance in the box timber industry jn Nelson was one of the things that impressed Mr C. E. Foweraker, lecturer in charge of the Canterbury College School of Forestry, during his visit there last week. He also saw some fine pine plantations. He told a reporter on Saturday that he had been particularly interested in one big mill equipped with the latest electrical machinery for cutting shooks. Of course the fruit industry was responsible for most of the business, but many cheese crates and petrol cases were also cut. Pinus insignia was the timber used almost exclusively. This particular mill brought its supply by lorry right from the AVairau valley in Marlborough, milling it first. Golden Downs Plantation, In the plantations he visited he found pinus insignis the chief tree- planted, and sonic fine specimens, there were. One area had been ravaged by fire and the company had not replanted the trees. At Golden Downs, over the other side of the range from Kelson, in -.the direction ■ of the West there was a State* plantation, "where large areas had recently .been planted with-insignis on the low levels and with redwood and Douglas fir on the slopes. The country was very suitable for afforestation. When the forest reached maturity the timber would be easily accessible. The fertile soil in the valleys made nursery work simple, while the bountiful rainfall made planting out highly successful. . In that district the deer problem had received close attention this year from the State Forest Service, which had shooting parties out in the back country killing large numbers of these animals which were so inimical to forest enter- ' prise.