ARBORICULTURE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 365, 23 April 1869, Page 3

ARBORICULTURE.

(TO THE EDITOR OF THE DUNSTAN TIMES.) Sir,—The similarity between the Scottish and New Zealand scenery is a subject upon which tourists have come to dilate, and, no doubt, the resemblance does exist to a certain extent. I fancy it is a good deal helped out to the apprehension of the traveller by the sound of the Doric of North Briton which so constantly greets his ears. The mountains and the rivers are, however, on a much larger scale. Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis sink into comparative insignificance when compared with even the second ranked mountains in the Lakes district. It is curious to notice how much this effect is diminished by the greater purity of the atmosphere here. This rarity gives rise to so great a clearness that one can hardly realise thefaetthatthemountain you seeclearly before you, apparently of a moderate height, is in reality some fifty or even eighty miles away, and twice or three times as high as the Scottish mountains. The same with the rivers. I could hardly realise, the other day, in travelling from the Dunstan to the Lake, that the Molyneux shining at the bottom of the deep gorges and bluffs was anything larger or so large as Tweed or Tay, though I know that it probably passes into the sea as much water as all the Scottish rivers put together. But the greatest of all the contrasts is the barrenness of this country, compared with the other. We know that Scotland has been greatly amenable to the same charge Many of your readers will remember the beautiful address of Burns to the Duke of Athol, lamenting the barrenness of the banks of the Bruar Water at the Falls, and petitioning his Grace to clothe them with wood, and such as have visited these woods—for such they are now —and has also known the ‘price obtained for the thinnings, will acknowledge the value of the poet’s song, not as regards its beauty only, bnt also for its results in the form of utility. Would that some one would raise his voice for these plains and hills. From Waikouaiti to Kyeburn, all the Manuherikia, round to the river and up to the Lake, a stick of twenty feet long has to be imported, And in all these places and many more, I am perfectly convinced, notwithstanding the assertions of a great number of the residents, that many kinds of trees would grow in some places with a minimum of care, and in almost all with a moderate amount of trouble and expense. I came to this conclusion from the experience that, wherever anybody really tries it, he succeeds. I see patches of various kinds of trees doing! well, and in u the most exposed spots, with inferior soil, and in such sterile regions as the Banks of the Arrow river, and also other places, where there did not appear to be a particle of sustenance. There seems to be a great preference for the “soft woods.” The blue gum and the poplar are generally favorites. The blue gum, in some places, survived last winter, which proves it to be hardy enough for anything, and I did not hear of a poplar being killed ; still these, though valuable for shelter, so sorely needed in many places, both of them are far inferior in point of utility to the wdllow, which grows better than either of them where there is a sufficiency of water. But of all the trees suited to New Zealand and worthy of acclimatization there is not one, I fancy, superior to the Scotch fir. Mr, Gregor, of Forres, who is an authority on the subject, seems to think, as I noticed by an article in the “Saturday Review,” that the Highland pine, when “true bred,” is superior to any other for general purposes. He places that and the larch among conifers, and ash and poplar among the deciduous trees, as superior to all others. Indeed, he goes so far as to say the Scotch fir is equal, for all unwarlike purposes, to the oak, or at any rate to the best pine from the Baltic. Now all these I find flourishing iu different parts of this immediate vicinity—l mean in gardens and plantations in the bare places I before referred to—and I should be glad to call the attention of your readers to the subject. I am, &e., A. H. April 19, 1869.