The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1886.

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 111, 27 February 1886, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1886.

Bush Burning

The question of the destruction of forests through bush fires is receiving some attention in Auckland. Tho Waitemata County Council is bringing pressure to bear on the Government to provide in the coming session an extensive and practical system of forest laws, varied to meet the special needs of the different provinces. The impression was also expressed that this matter avoulcl have been long since attended to if there had been a clear sense of tho enormous annual loss caused by bush, fires, commonly of wilful origin. Our contemporary, the Auckland Herald, thinks it in high time for the public to rouse up in this matter. For a good while back it has been a question of much painful c Iculation as to how many years New Zealand forests could continue to last at tbe current rate of their removal, without any counter-balancing arrangements to preserve and restore them. Referring to the recent bush fires, which have played such havoc, and which were started by malicious hands, the chairman of the Council before-mentioned said, " the Government had never grasped the fact that the firing of a forest should be punished as in the case of firing stacks and houses." As for the State forests they exist onlj in name ; there are no real arrangements to prevent them going down like other woods. What will New Zealand do if she loses her timber supply ? Placed in the middle of the sea, it is necessary she should become a great maritime and trading country, like the mother country herself. But England, after parting with her forests, could still import for her shipbuilding excellent oak from West Africa, and teak from the East Indies, aud pine wood for her many domestic wants from Norway and Canada. But when New Zealand parts with her forests where will she import from ? The disappearance of forests, the rapidly- extending scarcity of timber all over the globe is now a question of the gravest apprehension and most earnest debate in England and all civilised and industrial nations. In regard to tlie climate influences — the effect on the regularity of the rainfal and flow of rivers — even new countries have now projects of forest conservation on a gigantic scale. America is alarmed about the changes which the loss of the woods might produce in her mighty rivers, and the entire region around the sources of the principal ones to preserve in sylvan wilderness, under rigid guardianship, is a project of the statesmen and Press of the Republic. That would be a forest with the dimensions of a State probably as large as any of them. Even in the cold airs of Canada they feel anxiety on the subject, and also talk of enf oresting a huge tract in their section of the Rocky Mountains. This subject is of more interest perhaps to the Auckland settlers than to us in Manawatu and Oroua, for that the land on which kauri forest grows is valueless after the tress have been cut down, the soil being so poor. Yet even here the wilful and careless destruction of forests invariable entails a heavy monetary loss by the destruction of timber trees of considerable market value. It is true the land is cleared, but at what a cost? We could quote scores of instances where the value of the trees, when sold to the snwmillers, has more than covered tlie original price of the land. Under no circumstances can bush be burned, unless, properly ft/lled for the purpose,

without loss, and sv en the bush thus j apparently legitimately destroyed j could have been turned into a source j of profit by the manufacture of potash, i Whatever steps are taken in the House next session to legislate on this sub-joct will be watched with interest by all who are desirous of saving our noble forests from utter annihilation.