THE PAPAKURA BUSH.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 681, 4 November 1921, Page 4

THE PAPAKURA BUSH.

The news that the beautiful piece of native bush on the main road just to the sou’jth of Papakura town is to be cut up into building sites will come as a most unpleasant shock to a great many people. For the last seventy years it has attracted the admiration of all users of the Great South Road, and its distraction would be an irreparable loss not only to Papakura but rto the thousands of travellers and .tourists who now pass

it, It is remarkable not merely because of its beauty, but because of the large number of varieties of our native trees Ithat are represented in a small area. It is also an excellent example of the; re-afforstation that is being freely advocated now, the trees being nearly all young arid healthy specimens that have replaced the original growth, and they are inured to the exposure that is so fatal to most of the patches of bush left for ornament or shelter.

This is not a very good time to broach the subject of collecting subscriptions, but the making safe of this beauty spot for all time is so very special an object—we might say a duty—that we hope the public will take the necessai-y steps to preserve it. It is a subject that concerns not merely Papakura, but the whole district, including Auckland, and affords an opportunity for public-spirited people to earn the gratitude of generations to come. The beautiful forest that formerly covered most of the country has been so ruthlessly destroyed that it would be a positive sin to stand by and permit this beautiful little remnant of our former glories {to perish alsoj