SEED FOR N.Z.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 December 1929, Page 7

SEED FOR N.Z.

c* CANADIAN YELLOW PINE. 'FO RESTRY PLANT ING. VANCOUVER, Nov. 13. Four thousand pounds of seed of the yollow pine, obtained from cones (collected in the Ka.mploops district of British Columbia, are being prepared, at the Canadian Government’s seed extracting station in New Westminster, for shipment to New Zealand. Tins is not the first 'shipment of seeds of Canadian trees to be sent to other countries from Hie New Westminister plants, which was established in 1021 and has been described as the. largest of its kind in the world.

In that plant large quantities of cones, collected in. the forests of British Columbia, a,re put through the process necessary to strip them of the seeds they contain. This seed is intended to he employed in afforestation or reforestation in this and other countries. A large part of the output ,of the New Westminister plant has '.been available for export. Some of the seed has been shipped to Australia and New Zealand and some to Great Britain for the use of the Forestry Commission appointed there some years ago. In the first few years of operation of the station in ■New 'Westminister 'about 14,000 pounds of seed, mostly of Sitka spruce and Douglas fir were sent from there to the British Commission. The Com mission believed that these species of trees, which flourish in British Columbia would grow satisfactorily in the British. Isles and would be in time a valuable addition to the timber resources in the State Forests there. The ' 14,000 pounds of seed were sufficient, it was estimated, to produce enough plants for reforestation of 50,030 acres of land. The seed was sown throughout the British Isles and germinated well in the nurseries. Most of the seed was used by the Forestry Commission in its work of enlarging the State Forests. Some of it was sold to nurserymen and to private persons.

Through the seed extraction station in New Westminister Canada is thus helping to add to the forest resources of other parts of the British Empire. As a result of the shipment of tree seeds to Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Canadians who visit those countries in years to come may see there forests of conifers whose ancestors grew in Canada on the shores of the Pacific, just as Australians may now sec their beloved euealptus flourishing all over California and as far north as Tacoma in the State oi Washington.