“APPALLING” WASTE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 March 1921, Page 3

“APPALLING” WASTE

OF NEW ZEALAND TIMBER. AN EXPERT’S OPINION. WELLINGTON, March 12. Professor Ernest H. Wilson (assistant director of the Arnold Arboretum, l " Harvard University US.A.), who loaves '■ by the Moeraki this morning for Tas--0 mania, lias covered a great deal of e ground, and pretty thoroughly investi--11 gated forest conditions during his few s weeks’ stay in the Dominion. Landing v at Auckland, ho first took a trip to the North Auckland district in order to n see the kauri pine in its native habitat and under the best conditions, visiting among other kauri forests that known as Trounson’s National Park, beyond Dargaville. Professor Wilson speaks most enthusiastically of the kauri as a timber tree, and greatly deplores the waste and destruction that has been j taking place, and is in a measure still taking place, in our kauri and other ■native forests. Coming hack to Auckland, Professor Wilson went to Rotorua to see the wonders of the Hot Lakes district, and the great State planta-

( tions, and thence In' camo through to : Wellington. Next, accompanied In ( Captain Mclntosh Ellis (Direc- ( tor of Forest), of whom both as a ! forest expert and as a man lie speaks most highly, lie made a forest-inspection tour of the South Island visiting Christchurch, JHannier Springs, Dunedin, Queenstown, Invercargill and the Bluff, doing thence across Southland to Musselborough, he doubled back to Christchurch and across Arthur’s Pass to j Otira. and Hokitika, and then travelled north by the usual route through the Boiler Gorge to Nelson. “AWFUL DESTB FCTION.” j Professor Wilson, who arrived in | Wellington yesterday morning from Nelson was interviewed in the afternoon by a “Times” representative to j whom lie detailed his itinerary. “You I will see,” he said, “that for the short time J have been here, I have travelled I over a good bit' of New Zealand, and that I have been able to do so is thanks J to the facilities and the courtesies cxj tended to mo by your State Forestry Depatrinent.” “The thing that has »p----j palled me,” added Professor Wilson—j “pardon the language, but I am speak- { ing just as I feel, is the awful waste i ih.[< awful destruction of timber that has gone on, and is still going on, throughout your country. 1 am appalled and shocked. I cannot find words to adequately express how I feel about this awful waste of the country’s heritage'. Your forests, here could he. and should be, your greatest sources of national wealth, and the way they have been destroyed almost leaves me speechless. Except on the Canterbury Plains, where there rawer were any trees, I don't, thing that, with the possible exception of about twenty miles in the Build' Gorge. | have not* been out of sight of stark, burnt trunks the whole time I have been in New Zealand. The destruction has been so senseless, too, I don’t know what the people can be at. They don’t .want to destroy their country, surely ; lint if they really meant it and set out to destroy their country they would not lie succeeding better. That is the horrible part of it. !)! course in the case of good agricultural

1:111(1, where that lias forest on it, th»» trees will li.ivc to ju>. There is not ono of us liowovor ftivat a lover of trees he may ho, but recognises that. Hut the timhor ouiilit to he marketed. yVliat appals mo is that the mountain tops and roil oh hilly country that will never ho lit lor agriculture or else hut timber-growing, have been burnt over. That is the worst ol if. And what is the result hut an impenetrable thicket of gorse, mid bramble and so on. 1 have seen land that would not feed a sheep to five acres cleared of thousands ol pounds’ worth of timber. It will not even feed a sheep to live acres for more than four or live years. It is hound to go back alter a lew veai's. As soon as what loodstull there is in the soil is exhausted, that is

tlio end of it. SOIL WAS 1,1 Kl) INTO SEA. “As ofti'ii as not, moreover, the rain washes the soil away into the sea, lilting iijj your harbours. That is what is going on all the time. It is not merely the timber that is being destroyed, the country is living destroyed as well. Already you have destroyed the balance of nature, and are getting every pest in the world lfeie. It is going to cost you millions simply to control the pests. \ou have intioduced all sorts of things from Europe for sentimental reasons, and they have simply gone wild There are, for instance, the rabbit and the gorse. That is tlie thing thath as appalled me all through; and if this destruction continues at the rate that it has been go- , jug on for the last fifty years, t ; doesn’t seem to me that, commercially j speaking, you will have any timber ( loft* in twenty-five years’ time. The , timber in your forests, of course, should only lie used lor the benefit of the people, not abused. \\ here we find fault with the people is not for i using the timber, not for clearing ag- j gricultural land, but lor abusing the j timber and destroying the bush on ! land that is no good for anything else. , The present system of going through I a forest, taking out all the best of i it and setting fire to the rest. j most wasteful. i

KILLING TITK SOIL. i “You destroy not only what timber is left on the ground, but also the ! possibilities of th ( , soil for growing 1 another timber crop. You kill the soil, and that is most serious matter, j the most serious ol all.’ Professor . Wilson explained, as reported elsewhere, that he meant by this destroying the bacteria in the soil, which form nodules on the roots of our native conifers, similar to the basteria nodules on pears, beans, clover, and other legumons. and thus materially assist the growth of the trees. “No one,’’ the professor went on to say, “will dispute the fact that you cannot have both forests and fires. That is agreed; hut, unless something can b ( > done to stop this wanton destruction by fire, you may well give up all hope of having forests of any commercial value in New Zealand. I must confess I do not see how it is to be stopped. Of

course, public sentiment will help to check it; but it seems to m c that stringent fire-protection laws, with heavy penalties -attached will have to be passed and very strictly enforced. You cannot have both fire and forests First decide what you want. If you want a bonfire then, all right, carry on. But if you want timber, then you

have got to stop the fires. You have got here one of the most beautiful countries in th P world; an equable climate— a white man’s element in eve--; sense of the phrase; a country and » climate beautiful beyond words,; and yet, through thoughtlessness or- what not, you seem to be doing your best to destroy both your country and your climate. T am sure that that is not what New Zealanders intend to do; that it is simply through ignorance and carelessness that they are going on m this way. But, whether it is done n ignorance or of set purpose, the result is the same.” Professor Wilson spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty and of the pot m tinl commercial value of the New Zealand native bush; and -declared that “Use, not abuse, the bush,” should be the motto of every patriotic New Zealander.