OUR NEGLECTED FORESTS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 40, 10 November 1917, Page 3

OUR NEGLECTED FORESTS

AW PYDPRT QFIRVUV AN cArMI oUKYM

NEED OF NEW METHODS

, Below is printed a note on forestry in New Zealand, from the pen of Mr. D. E. Hutchins. Mr. Hutching, a forestry expert of long experience in India and Africa, has been retained by the Government to report on the forests of the Dominion. His report has not yet been published, but the brief survey here presented is a striking indictment of the policy of neglect whieh has resulted in the destruction of groat areas of indigenous forest whioh should have been preserved as a permanent asset. It at the same time emphasises the beuefits still to be obtained by conserving and working our remaining native forests undor approved scientific methods. ■ Tho forests of New Zealand, Mr. Hutchins observes at the outset, are, after the climate, the best natural asset possessed by tho Dominion. They havo escaped development solely because New Zealand has been developed by men coming from a country where there is no State forestry. "The coalfields and goldfields," he continues, "have been examined by engineers and geologists. If a fraction of the development that has been put into coalmines and goldmines had been bestowed on the forests they would now be more valuable national 'assets than the coalmines and goldmines put together. Thus the New Zealand coalfields have produced up to date a total of ,£22,610,067 worth of coke and coal. With a proportionate attention to forestry, with no appreciable lose to other industries, nothing more, in fact, than a very little poor grazing (of which much has already gone back to scrub, gorse, and other noxious weeds), the forest industry could have produced this total .value, of, say, .£23,000,000, in two years, if only the home market, the larger part of the Australian, and\a small portion of the two other timber markets in the Southern Hemisphere had been filled. Ordinary attention to forestry thirty years ago would have enabled New Zealand to do this in part now, and later altogether. I estimate the European and Southern Hemisphere timber markets open' to New Zealand as worth now ;6U,000,000 yearly; and these markets ar» more likely to improve than fall off, becaus6 v all statistics show that with civilisation and industrial progress, although wood is replaced for many uses, the net result is a greater demand for wood. In the kauri tree New Zealand hae probRbly the most valuable timber tree in the • world. Its timber is nnsurpassed by any other in the ohief timber markets of the world. It grows nearly twice, ae fast as European timber trees, aad where it is now deficient in the forest it can be interplanted, to a full stock at about the cost of grossing. My investigations have shown that It is seemingly the largest timher-yieldin<r tree in the world, taking the recorded dimensions of the historical trees in the Tutamoe forest. It is not quite so thick or so high as some other giant trees, but it cubes larjrer than they do, on account of the small amount of taper in the trunk. The Tntamoe forest is not far from Waipoa. forest, and can be saved for the country if demarcation is taken in hand at once. Living: would be nppreciably cheaper with abundant timber and firewood at people's doors. There is a firewood famine at present in !New Zealand, firewood near most 'f the industrial centres being as dear as good sawoble timber in Europe, while a timber famine is rapily approaching. New Zealand at present is being stinted and starved in one of the prime receseanes of civilisation—timber and firewood. The present use of timber in New Zealand hns become restricted to an average of only 25 cubic feet per ennita. while tho United States had a yearly consumption nf IGO cubic- feet timber and 96 cubic feet firewood. Germany, with a lnrze population on n small area, line a yearly; consumption of W cubic feet timber and 18 cubic feet firewood, thus releasing a larse surplus : of coal for exportation. Other countries, excepting England, show similar .fibres. 'New Zealand with, its comparatively email population is. already importing half a million pounds' worth of timber yearly, and much coal. Value of New Zealand Forests. "The miilable forests of New Zealand contain over double the timber per acre of the great national forests of the United States of America, covering an area nf over twice the total land area of New-Zealand. The market value of New Zealand timber ii> the *orest is now nearly double European prices; and tho .-rowth of the trees, if the forests were cultivated as in Europe, would probably be about double the growth of European timber trees. The five chief timbers of New Zealand-kauri, totarn, rimu, white pine, and the beeches-grow decidedly fnsfor than the five chief timber trees of Europe-the oak. bew.h, Scotch pine, spruce, and silver fir. .Thus, if we tnke (lie figures publisher! by the. ''ate Mr. Matthews in his book 'Tree Culture in New Zealand' and compare them with the standard yield tables, of European foresters published in Sir W. Schlich's Manual (of which there is a copy in the Parliamentary Library), it is seen that the New Zealand timber'trees grow, on an average, about twice ae fait in diameter and from 25 per cent, to 50 per cent, faster in height growth. Sneaking in a general -way, European timber frees ore cut at about 100 years of age. when fhey are nhont,nne foot thick. Kauri is fit to cut at 100 years, and is then two feet in dinmefer. If the New Zealand trees wore grown under the most favourable .renditions, as in the cultivated forests of Europe, it seems safe to say that the growth would be twico ;»« fast. NnwZealnnd forests are nenrlv all coniferous and the most valuable in the Southern Hemisphere. According to the American official niiblicntion "Forest Resource of the Wnjld," New Zealand should bo a great timber-exporting country. European Forests. "The results achieved in European forestry when one looks into the figures are phenomenal. They are more striking than the advances made along those lines of development that are more familiar to Englishmen, such as' agriculture, mines, fisheries, r<yids, etc. One hundred and fifty years ago there were no Forest Departments in Europe, and most of the forest was in worse order than the present demnrcatable forest of New Zealand to-day. Money for improv- , ing the poor European forests was advanced by Government or paid for by cuttings from the better forests. The forests were worked and gradually improved by forestry methods, paying their way in the process. The Prussians kept, perhaps, the best statistics. Details given in my report show that in a man's lifetime of 74 years the effective timber yield in Prussia has beon increased ninefold, ' and the money yield more than ten times! With the making "of forest roads the value of timber has gone up, too. Timber which was worth from Id. to 2<l. per cubic foot in 1830 had an allround average (price, Mien this war broke out, of 3Jd. per cubic foot. In the most productive of European forests, tho spruce forests of Saxony, timber averaged 2d. per cubic foot in 1830. When the war broke out it had risen to 6d. or GJd. per cubic foot. In France results have been similar. The national forests in Europe now yield handsome profits. Thus, to the five chief German States, .£6,000,000 yearly; to France (robbed of its best forests in 1870), .£1,000,000 yearly; to Russia (from an area of only partly-developed and worked forests exactly ten times the size of New Zealand), i l-3rd million pounds. . These are net revenues paid yearly into the State coffers, and it all comes from forests worked conservatively, and steadily improving. In the kingdom of Prussia the State forests are the best revenue-pro-ducers after the State railways, good and moderate in fares as these are. . . . There is no question as to the feasibility of applying ordinary forestry methods to New Zealand forests. It has been done'-, for 32 years in South Africa, where the 'bush' so closely resembles that of New Zealand. The employment in European forests comparable to those of New Zealand, and allowing for shorter working hours, ia at the rate of one man per 100 acres. This is the rate adopted in my report for all calculations' of employment, settlement, and money returns, supposing that the New Zealand forests were developed like those of Europe. At present, with the waste

places desolate and no national k< forestry, tho average number of % breadwinners on the land (A. and P.) in ra New Zealand is one man per GO2 acres. |sj Host of tbo expenditure in European for- ffi ests has been in making roads. As a S rule, planting is only used where natural || regeneration fails:, The State of Baden g> has forests which Supply the best model p in management for Now Zealand to copy. |j All details aro given in my report; but it Hi may be noted here that, while an aver- u age of 2s. per acre per year is ..spent on m roads, the proportion of planting to natu- te I'ftl regeneration is only 1 per cent. 1 New' Zealand Plantations, . | 'Tor reasons which have never been | satisfactorily, explained, it has been ft thought to replace the valuable native | forest of New Zealand by artificial plan- j| tations of oiotics—a quite unusual procoeding in forestry. To do this effective- k ly the cost would be quite prohibitive; 8 nor is such a high expenditure justified, | considering tho risk which naturally at- | tends the planting of exotic trees. This | risk is fivefold, as detailed in jj of my report. The cost of the planta- | tions up to date is at the rate of .813 per 1 aore, or with Ithe inevitable interest i charge, ,£65 per aore. The total area planted ie 30,000 acres, so that the money | sunk up to date in forest plantations ap- s proaohes .62,000,000. These plan- | tntions can not be expected to equal im- | proved native forests. Plantations are jj required in New Zealand, but for spe- 5 cial purposes only, such as eucalypt plan- | tations for railway sleepers in the north, | and to form suburban forests near towns, I for defensive purposes, for recreation, and jj to appreciably lower the cost of living , - j They are unknown in England, but com- 1 mon elsewhere in Europe. « "It ie shown in my report that, for cultivation and development on the European plan, the ordinary New Zealand bush is worth to-day from £300 to ,£SOO per acre; so that the present plan of destroying the most valuable forests in the Southern Hemisphere and replacing them by risky plantations of exotica means a certain net loss to the country of or more, per acre—namely, .£3OO or more the value of the native forest,/and .£65. the cost of laying down forest plantations to replace the lost forest. This is why forest demarcation is so urgent, to at once stop this unnecessary -waste. "To put New Zealand forestry into the position of other civilised countries, the tivo urgent measures immediately neceseary are (1) forest demarcation, (2) the formation of a technical non-political Forest Department, on the lines of the Forest Servioe of the United States of Amerioft."