OUR FORESTS AND AFFORESTATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1918, Page 4

OUR FORESTS AND AFFORESTATION.

(Contributed.)

From time to time the question of the destruction of our forests lias been discussed, and frequently much nonsense is uttered on the subject.

As Sir Rider Haggard travelled along the Noith Island trunk railway he saw vast areas of land covered with bare standing tree*, logs and stumps, and was grieved to see such evidences of the destruction of the primeval forest, and to him it was a great sin and shame that such destruction should have been allowed. Such men, and many of our own people appear to believe that the timber that has been destroyed was all valuable milling timber suitable for building purposes etc. While it is very true that iu certain localities good red pine, maitai, white pine, and sometimes totara, has been destroyed, it is not so to the extent generally supposed and believed, for great stretches of forest country in parts both of the North and South Is'ands were covered with timber that had no commercial value. •

It is well known by all our bnslimen that the seed of the red pine lias very low germinating powers. Millions of seeds are dropped from the large trees, but comparatively few germinate and start a young few on its life work of growing into a giant. Consequently the trees in question which supply our most plentiful and useful building timber do not spread rapidly, or grow thickly all through the forests, and where parent trees are doing I heir best to renew their kind the under o-rowth often completely smothers the seeds and gives them no chance to even sprout. Many of the areas that have been worked for red pine only produced from five to fifteen trees per acre, and the great red pine forests of the West Coast of the South Island have only yielded an average of about 1200 super feet of sawn timber per acre.

Many millions of acres of bush country on the North Island had not an average of oiie good milling tree per acre. The rata, tawa, liinau, and many other such like trees are, from the commercial point of view, rubbish. Some of them make good firewood, hut generally the cost of getting the fuel to market makes it dear. Tt is of course admitted that in the past, in certain districts much valuable timber has been destroyed to make loom for settlers, and in such cases the land should not have been sold by the Government until the milling timber had been utilized. What the Dominion has biuly wanted in the past, and still wants, are settlers on the land. Had “onr early statesmen enacted laws to prohibit the cutting down of the forests we could not have accommodated many settlers on the land. If we consider for n. moment the great extent of land on the western side of the North Island from Wanganui to Opunaki, persons who knew that country from the earliest times of settlement, before any of the hush was cleared, are aware that along the coast line there was a strip of open land from three to live miles wide, behind which there was bush country reaching far inland, which contained practically no timber of commercial value, in only about two localities were there good enough patches of milling timber to warrant the erection of a. small sawmill. Near where Alton now stands aboni 100,000 feet of rirnu were cut, and a small mill behind Normanby cutout some matai. Can it he regarded as wasteful destruction to have destroyed that great extent of forest, considering the beautiful and productive farms that are now to be seen throughout, that part of the North Island. The land in those parts yield a return of from Af> to £lO per acre per annum to the industrious dairy farmer. Had that country been left in its natural state the production would have been nil. We cannot have both the bush intact as nature planted it. and the settlers as well. The one has to give way for the other. The bush was very beautiful, but so are the farms and homesteads. The same holds good in many other places and on millions of acres, and in the destruction of the forests to make room for settlers, we have not as much to regret as is often represented by people who should give the matter consideration from all points of view.

On the West Coast of the South Island the forest containing good milling timber was and still is of vast extent, and much of it is suitable for

permanent forest, hut it is being cut out very rapidly-and, so far, no planting is being done to ensure a supply of timber for future generations A very silly and absolutely false theory has been promulgated recently, and apparently the authorities that control our forests have swallowed it bolus bolus. This theory bolds that our forests, after the ripe milling trees have been taken out, will renew themselves naturally, that is, the young rinius will go on growing to take the place of the ones removed, and that., at from 30 to 50 years after the cutting of nature’s first crop, another gcod crop of timber will be available. Persons who are experts in forestry in other countries come to us with these ideas, but. thousands of our own bnshmen and sa wmillers who were mostly born and reared in the forest, know for a certainty that sncli natural renewal of our forests can never take place. The "writer has no knowledge of the forests of other countries except, that obtained from coming into contact with experienced and observant men who know something of the conditions prevailing in other countries, and from rending on the subject; but it is well known that in mauy other countries the natural forests of useful timber trees do naturally renew themselves.

In New Zealand generally, and especially on the West • Coast of the South Island, the undergrowth smothers the young rimus, and one has only to examine ai'eas where the timber was cut out, say from 80 to 45 years ago (and every opportunity has been afforded for the young trees to grow) to be convinced that if we once cut out our forests, no fresh crop of the same timber that has been removed will ever grow unless planting takes place. To be satisfied that the seed of the rirnu has weak germinating powers, one has only to walk through some of our good milling bush and count the young trees coming on. Often ho will not find five trees per acre. Had the germinating power of the rirnu seed been similar to the seeds of the oak and other forest trees of European countries, instead of being able to cut an average of about ±2,oooft per acre, our millers would have been getting 100,000 ft, or more, per acre, for it is well known that the land would carry the trees, and they would come to maturity even if there were several hundred trees to each acre, as in the forests of other countries. It must he admitted that here and there one sees small areas where a few young trees are growing up among the older giants, but in such cases, as soon as the big trees are removed, if a fire does not go through and kill all the young trees, the undergrowth smothers them and a few years afterwards there are few or none to be seen. If the foregoing is true, and not many of our observant bushinen } will deuy it, it follows that if future generations are to have tirnb r tlie trees must be planted by man’s hand.

Seeing that our forests will not renew themselves in a natural way, is it not time something was done to ensure that future generations will not be -without timber ? A very great extent of the bush country on the West Coast now being, and to be cut out by the sawmiller, is more suitable for permanent forests than for se( dement, but if anything of commercial value is to.grow on these areas in the future the trees must be planted. The authorities who control the working of the forests should insist that, the areas worked for timber should be worked to.the very best advantage, and without waste. The miller should be compelled to lake every tree down to even 10 or 12 inches diameter, for it is well known that the small trees that are left will be waste, that is, they will never survive and come to maturity, the rubbish frees such as fowai, Innan, tanekaha, and such like, should each and every one be removed to make room for a tree that will in time grow into commercial timber. There are on an average about 500 such rubbish trees to each acre, even in the best rirnu bush. As to what kind of trees should be planted I will not venture an opinion, but our oldest and most observant bnshmen all believe it would be wasted expenditure to plant any of our own native trees, for they are of such slow growth that eevei'&l centuries would probably elapse before any benefit could be derived by the people who may then possess this fair country. There can be no doubt whatever that tlie ripe rimus now being cut by our millers, from which good heart timber is being got, must iu many cases be at least 500 years old, and it is doubtful if the trees from 12 to 1 5 inches in diameter are less than !00 \ ears old. As many as 400 growth rings have been counted in a tree 80 inches in diameter. There are much faster growing trees that could be planted from which good timber could lie sawn at from 80 to 40 years after planting, and “ thinnings ” for mine props and for firewood and other purposes could be taken out within from 8 to 12 years. Areas on the Coast that are most suitable for settlement should, as soon as the sawmiller has done with them, lie sold cheaply to settlers who would make homes on the land ; but probably three-fourths of our forest areas are better suited for permanent forests than for settlement.

Should not our Chamber of Commerce and other local bodies, stir up our National Government and get something in the way of afforestation on the West Coast undertaken. Much of the work could be done by returned soldiers. But before anything can be hoped for we must get rid of the erroneous idea that our forests will in a natural way renew themselves after nature’s first crop of ripe trees is removed.