OUR BUSH LANDS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2715, 30 October 1871, Page 3

OUR BUSH LANDS.

New Zealand has as great aud as valuable a variety of timber as any country in the world. Nothing can be more "beautiful fufurniture, for door paunelling, and for other ornamental work than the rimu or red pine, which grows to a great size, ftnd presents an infinite variety in its grain. The matai or black pine takes a beautiful polish, but is more brittle and heavy than the other. The totara, another so-called pine (for they are none of them couifeue) is everlasting in the ground or out, and is easily worked both green and dry, and is also very light. The rata, that wonderful vegetable phenomenon loaning stself out of numberless vines, which first receive then- support fio,m some full grown tree, then enclose it in a deadly embrace and gradually expel tbe remains of their foster parent as their own growing demands for space require to”be satisfied, then, finally uniting themselves, form, a sap and heart, yoots, trunk, and branch, such as belong to other trees of less exceptional orLin, —this rata, which is proved to be the toughest wood grown in the Australasian colonies, and which is largely used by the millwright and engineer for the' tepth of multiplying gear, is being consumed by the hundred of tons weekly in Wtllington fireplaces alone. Besides all these forest kings arc many smaller fry, which would be highly appreciated, if known, for turning woods or for inlaying. There is the kohar, the manuka, the black tetoki, the mero, the mairi, and other woods invaluable for the lathe, and there is the inakia besides,—a wood which, when thoroughly dry, would turn or break the edge of the best axe ever produced in Sheffield. "When it is learnt that all these woods, xh almost endless quantities, are growing nowhere more than 150 miles from an available port, and in the immediate proximity of the projected railway lines, the question naturally arises whether no one will be forthcoming with sufficient energy, capital, and enterprise to prove that it will pay better to utilize this timber than to burn it on the ground. .