Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22nd, 1920 A SCHOOL OF FORESTRY.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22nd, 1920 A SCHOOL OF FORESTRY.

If our bran new Forestry Department is to achieve all the ideals its promoters have in mind, a chair of Forestry at some of our Universities will be a necessity to cultivate knowledge of the subject of forestry. The Director has recommended that such a chair be established and has proposed Canterbury as the centre, ©ut Auckland has stepped in and is pronouncing its claims in no under the bush manner. Also Auckland appears to possess “a political pull” ewhich no other province possesses, and other parts of the Dominion have found this out heretofore to their cost. Canterbury is alive to tlie position and its prospects, and is advocating its cause for the following reasons:

(1) The Director is in favour of

(2) Canterbury has greater need for afforestation than any other part of the Dominion. (3) The plantations now grown in Canterbury. (4) No other province lias such areas of waste land. (5) Proximity to the forests of the West Coast. (6) Excellent internal communications.

The West Coast will be disposed to support the claims of Canterbury, and is entitled to do so in a very influential manner for the reason that it hold the forest country of the Dominion, which handled scientifically in the way of reafforestation, can be made to produce the timber requirements'of the Dominion for all time. This is not an offhand surmise, but a statements fact. .At the Canterbury meeting of protest last week one of the foremost authorities in New Zealand on tree plantations, Sir J, Young said that the West Coast was a forest that, properly managed, would last for all time, Canterbury was particularly suitable for the growth of exotic forests, one reason being the absence of fires. Another speaker, Professor .]. P. Gnbbatt, said that one of Auckland’s arguments was certainly peculiar. It had n/ctunlly been said that the South Island was almost entirely destitute of bush. As a matter of fact near Hokitika there was one of the best native forests in the whole of New Zealand. To forestry people the pireseince of a complete engineering school was highly important. Canterbury had not only the only really complete engineering school in New Zealand hut Professor Scott had a very up-to date hydraulic laboratory. Our West Coast forests adjacent to the school of Forstry would thereby become the laboratory for practical work in forestry and as the results promise to be o such estimable value to posterity, th importance of practical knowledge ii the matter, cannot bo prized too great ly. The local Sawmillers’ Assoeiatioi is supporting the establihment of thi Chair of Forestry at Canterbury Col lege, and allthings in reason point ti that being the most desirable centn witliin the Dominion. The timber in .dustry is destined to centre on the West Coast, and we cannot be too mu cl alive to the potency of this fact. Bui we are chafeing to see a beginning made with the forestry question in thii district. Conservation seems to be go ing on wholesale, and that is all to tin detriment of the district, which is being unduly penalised. Reafforestation is what is required and what should be demanded. The Department so far has gone nap on “demarcation” in a wholemanner. This means tieing up the forest land unduly, and the present generation will not get their profit out of them. There are thousands of acres of suitable land for tree, planting in Westland, but the authorities seem to be avoiding the district. Just why, when experts like Mr Young, and Professor Gabbatt speak so glowingly of our forests, it is impossible to explain.