STATE FORESTS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 September 1925, Page 4

STATE FORESTS

\V Ki.I.IXGTOX, September I. ’l’ll*, report of Ihe State purest Service stale-, i hat the Irndy eompri-ed twelve executive niiieers and eightyI lil'ce operating ollicers. equivalent to one operating ollircr for each ill). (Hill :n res. Doling the year g’d.tlllil acres of State plantations were formed, as compared with practically the same acreage Ml the two previous years. Tile ib-eal policy adopted secured full value and returns for every pound spent .and every stick of limber sold. The income last year from timber sales, tree stiles, grazing, etc., was t'ltil.lli'. The expenditure in protection. management,, surveys and administration was £ II.(till. and Invest land purchases and extension of plantations ..including L'lOll,()()() tor purchase of the Kclwvn Stott lenient Forest) was L'Digit Id. Forestry education had been disseminated by popular lectures, exhibitions at shows, moving picture lilm demonstrations and advice, producing and selling trees for planting at the lowest prices, publication and circulation of literature and advertisement. The country, slated th*. report, was solid for forestry, and the ••'Plant. Trees and Grow .Money " idea. A modern and etlieieol sale policy was put into operation with splendid con.sequential results. Costs of planting had been reduced from £7 ds 2d per acre in the pro-war years to L'2 Us 7il for the past two years. This was

achieved by drastic economies in nursery and planting methods. Hy a system of prevention and control former enormous State losses of forest hy lire were reduced to only CO] in the 1021 lire season. The policy of the Forest Service had for its goal the complete assurance of Xew Zealand’s timber requirements, conservation and protection of climatic and recreational forests and the preservation and control of native wild life.

A forest inventory shows over seventy thousand million feet of mature and prow inn; resources, 7d per cenl of I which is State owned. Kauri is practically all pone, the report notes, hut most of what is loft is State-owned. Proprietary forest ami pdantinp companies have now liecome so active in th(> promotion of planting schemes that it is desirable some form of statutory control should he exercised over these activities, says the report. The Government is recommended, therefore. to take this line of action wit!; regard to all public and private afforestation syndicates and companies organised for the purpose of procuring tit her crops. It ts understood that . , h let Cot Hi. Of il i i- invested in this to; nr of enterprise here bv the public of New Zealand and Australia. The total area of State forests in-[

creased by 02.-IO!l a. res dining tlie year, bringing the .grand total aereagt

of nationally-owned forests dedicated to timber crop production to 7.(So.doit acres, as against I.VI 1.070 in December, 1910. The increase of >0 nor rent in area represents 11 ,:f per cent of th-’ total area in the Dominion.