The Hokitika Guardian FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24th., 1922. SCIENTIFIC FORESTRY!

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24th., 1922. SCIENTIFIC FORESTRY!

In the ‘'Forest Magazine” lately issued there is an article which is described an a plea for scientific forestry. It is from tne pen of Captpin Eldis the Director of the State Forest Service. It is an article of the interrogatory kind, and our complaint is that it gets nowhere. A State Forest Service sounds line and large, and is an

eminently good thing, but the Now Zealand Stato Forest Service seems to be all in the air. 'The Department is busy building itself up, and not attending to the forestry as we would like to see it in a practical way. We are owning a very line Department, well organised so far as typewriters and motor cars are concerned, but it seems to be a case of an army of officers and no combatants or workers. Mr Ellis in his article, asks the pertinent question : “If you boil down nil this talk about forestry ; wlmt does it amount to:” That is precisely the question the public at large arc asking to-day with regard to the Department controlling the forestry, and there is no adequate answer, Mr Ellis proceeds to answer

his own question in his own way, hut he merely writes platitudes which get us nowhere as regards practical forestry—the achieveenint of something ■ definite. Take Westland for instance the land of forest, and the store house for the Dominion for forestry in the future—What is the Department doing in this natural home of the forest to make two trees grow where one grow before. At present the Department is ' bent on conserving the forests—con-

. verting the countryside into a vast preserve for posterity. The present generation as they require timber are not only going to have a dearer com-

| modify, but a scarcer commodity be- ■ cause of the difficulties hedged about I the cutting of timber. That means a I curtailment of industry. It is all very j fine and proper to think of the future, but is'the present to he starved so that the future may have plenty? If we nre to have scientific forestry, and the country is paving enough goodness knows, for the present make-believe conditions, let us see that the goods are delivered. Nothing comprehensive is attempted here yet in regard to reafforestation. This week a party of the Forestry Department passed into South Westland into the Never Never country, where isolation and difficulty of itcccHs will preserve the timber for all time. Why this excursion? Why Rot inspect the waste lands handy to the railway lines and adjacent to tile towns, and take action in regard to useful plantations, which iii a foW decades will show some result, ail'd erifg for posterity without unduly penalising the living? The ( .bst of tile present excursion into the south district; would il<) a great deal of plantation work if the money were utilised in that direction. Perhaps the reproduction of timber is not regarded as scientific forestry—but it ‘tell!.- to ns l to ir> practical forestry, and the best direct means to got results which will bo appreci 'tedi The present mania for locking up forestry country under restrictive regulations will have a baneful effect upon the district, and if this he the mission of the State Forest Service it is going to he a very serious burden upon Westland. TliQ restrictive conservation proposals of the Department nre most harmful and this will come home to the people s\>on. Timber culture should be the main mission of the Department, and activities iii that direction should he demanded Hot sb much oil scientific ns off jiriictical liiieS: