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Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1929, Page 4

Statk forestry is making sure though steady progress m Great Britain, and although the country by carrying out tne largest possible programme of alforcstation can never hope to supply anything but a small proportion of its annual timber requirements, it is some satisfaction to know says a London Journal, that tlie future will most certainly see larger supplies of homegrown timber available for the merchant. The Forestry Commission has now acquired more than 558,000 acres of land, oi which some threo-niths is plantahle, and 125,000 acres have been planted since 1920, besides which local authorities ami private individuals nave planted about (55,000 acres with the assistance of grants provided by the Commission. In connection with the forest workers’ holdings scheme, which has been in operation for a little over four years, 537 holdings have been completed and 2(57 more are in progress, the aim being to settle forest workers in part-time holdings adjacent to forest areas. From the point of view of providing employment, however, the results of the policy of afforestation are disappointing, for it is estimated that after the first two or three years of new planting, the actual number of men employed directly by tlie Commission is only about one per 100 acres. It is stated in a report of tlie Select Committee on Estimates dealing with the Forestry Commission that during the next' ten years as from April Ist. last the Commission oxnects to provide 225,000 acres for State planting, 1 47,000 acres for private and municipal planting, and 12,000 acres for the replanting of Crown wood-

lands. The State planting programme will lie carried out steadily at the rate of about 22,500 acres a year, and it is expected that £1,000,000 will be devoted in the period to forest workers’ holdings, and that grants will he made in addition for forest education and research. To give some idea of the extent to which Great Britain is dependent on imported supplies of timber, it is stated in the report that on the present programme of a.Tirestat'ion the normal annual out-turn after eighty years is estimated at only one and a-half weeks’ supply of the coniferous timber consumption of this country.