IS IT FORESTRY?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 131, 4 June 1937, Page 7

IS IT FORESTRY?

SMALL' SCHOOL' PLOT

A QUESTION OF TERMS

TARANAKI ARBORICULTURE

The Forestry Department's estimate (presented to the Conservation Conference) of the forestry results of Arbor Day in schools is disputed by the Senior Instructor in Agriculture (Mr. D. Mackay) of. the Taranaki Education j Board. ' The argument turns not on facts (which hardly seem io be in dispute) but on whether small plots (those of the Taranaki schools range from a half-acre to four acres) come under the heading ,of, forestry. The Forestry Department fixes the forestry . minimum at six acres planted annually, and says that smaller efforts belong to arboriculture or to horticulture.

In a report to the Taranaki Education Board (forwarded by the board to the "Evening Post") Mr. Mackay states that when the Forestry Department introduced -the scheme in 1926 the Department suggested thirty acres as the minimum school plantation, six acres to be planted annually. "The Education authorities considered the minimum excessive,"' demanding too much of the time and labour of school children.. ■■'. ' .

PLOTS UP TO;. FOUR ACRES.

Iri reply to the Forestry Department's point that it is doubtful if 100 acres of school forest (in the Department's sense of the term) exist, Mr. Mackay reports to his board that "in Taranaki alone, one of the smaller education .districts, there are 55 acres of school forest', ■■■'. in.addition to which tens :.'of thousands of trees grown in the school nurseries have been handed to farmer parents to foster tree-planting." Dealing with the 55 acres in its subdivisions and detail, he states:—

"According to the annual forestry return sent in by head teachers of schools last December, giving the position for 1936, the area in Taranaki district actually in school plantation (excluding wind-breaks, hedges, and shrubberies): amounted to 55 acres, planted ;in ~32,635\ forest trees ji the pine, cypress, and. eucalypt varieties. From -the school nurseries there were given' to farmers.-during the 'year for planting,on.;farms. 11,982, and there remained. in the nurseries.' in yearling and-two-year old trees (exclusive of seedlings)' 15,249. In addition to these there were, growing in the nurseries 162S young native trees (pohutakawas, kowhais, etc.) either raised from seed or transplanted from proper places. There are,6s school plantations ranging from 4 acres (Mahoenui) to J-acre. About 72 per cent, of our schools have forestry nurseries in which are raised natiyfe and exotic trees from seed and hedge, plants in large' numbers-from cuttings. School plantations are regularly inspected and are well fenced and protected. Planting has been cqrripleted in a majority of plantations and the others are being rapidly filled/

Mr. Mackay also states that last year ]35 Taranaki schools accepted the present of a kauri tree from the Institute of Horticulture. "Plantations are the cherished possession of many a school district. . . . The forester's objective is the paying tree; the teacher's is the fitting of the child as an individual and as a citizen for the battle of life." Attempts to "belittle the gestures made by the schools" are deprecated.

SMAIX-SCAtE WORK NOT FORESTRY.

In reply, the Forestry Department, in a communication to the "Evening Post" by the Director of Forestry, Mr. A. D. McGavock, retains and maintains the purely forestry standpoint of its statement to the Conservation Conference:

"To most of the claims of the Taranaki Education Board one is glad to assent.freely. The facts are, in the main, correct; but the difference is in the interpretation of the facts. The very small-scale operations for which Taranaki rightly claims credit are not forestry but horticulture, or at best arboriculture. The article admits that from the beginning of the scheme Taranaki dissented from the fundamental conditions on which the scheme was based, viz., that six acres in one plot should be the irreducible minimum area to be formed and tended if the scheme was to have any forestry value-and if subventions from' forest funds were to be justified. So far as the Forest Service is concerned, this condition has always been; accepted by. the Education Department,, and for twelve years trees and'seeds have been supplied on this explicit understanding. The Taranaki statement is the first advice that has been received that trees were, accepted, with a mental reservation that the minimum area was considered excessive.' "The fact that now, after "twelve years of operation,' the scheme, although, pursued in Taranaki with' vigour on the lines indicated by the Taranaki Board's "article; has failed to establish a'single plot of the minimum size postulated in 1924;, is in itself adequate pi;o6f.that from a forestry viewpoint the scheme has failed. This does not necessarily mean that it has failed from:an-educational viewpoint, or that the ■ small-scale . work of the past should!;be discontinued. Decision on those points isa matter for the Education Department. . The': point <at issue is sifnpjy that, since theactivities, laudable and successful though they be, are not forestry activities, expenditure on them from moneys voted by Parliament for forestry purposes is not justified. Their continuance and their maintenance are matters for decision and monetary provision by the Education Department.

"It is pleasing to learn that the Taranaki schools and scholars have had sufficient initiative to collect, save, and grow their own seeds. This is really practical forestry and applied nature study. The Taranaki. instructors and scholars are to be heartily congratulated on. this forward step, and it is hard to believe that such a practical measure was due merely to what is described as 'the flickering out of the Forest Service's interest in school forestry.' The Taranaki writer who makes that statement is too modest. The activity is certainly due to his own practical common sense and zeal for real work. That such measures have succeeded without Government support and subventions is added proof that Forest Service seed and tree •allocations to schools forestry were no longer necessary, and that the schools, after twelve years of subsidy, can quite capably act independently of outside assistance."