The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, July 18, 1912. ARBOR DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1071, 18 July 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, July 18, 1912. ARBOR DAY.

In every new country where trees are abundant, pioneers have regarded them as enemies to settlement. In every country where ruthless destruction of torests has occurred, not only has the climate changed, the soil become less fertile and droughts more frequent, but man has begun too late to repair by the feeblest possible means, the damage done. There is no country in the world where the extraordinary antipathy to trees has been carried to the same extent as in New Zealand. In innumerable instances superb timber that has taken thousands of years to mature has been burnt out root, branch and leaf. Many varieties have been utterly wiped out and thfere is a full determination to wipe out what remains. Regarded sentimentally the deforestation of New Zealand is vandalism of the worst kind. Regarded from the utilitarian standpoint it is utterly ruinous. Appalling waste in timber occurs every year and this is the more extraordinary when so much of it has been felled and bumt near railways or alongside decent roads or reasonable tracks. In districts where magnificent forest used to be, even firewood is now scarce and dear. If the average man thought what a vital part trees took in the economy of nature, he would hesitate every time he felled one tor mere destructive reasons. Burnt forest is the dearest manure New Zealand settlers ever put into their land. Their drought-smitten successors who try to raise crops out of lifeless laud will curse the early destroys. We have so often seen some of the wicked effects of wholesale denudation, especially on hillsides, every tree was a natural reservoir, and the most wonderful distiller that the Earth Mether supplies. Thousands of acres of New Zealand bare hillsides are to-day absolutely worthless, and they can never be clothed with soil any more. Rivers have been deflected by this-destruction, floods are common and climatic conditions have been seriously interfered with. Earners who have ruthlessly killed every' stick of native timber on their holdings, nowadays grow miserable vegetable strangers to give their stock the shelter that is as necessary as food to them. Aibor Day is regarded as rather a weak pandering to sentiment and the utilitarian side of it is not understood. The average schoolchild knows nothing about wonder and necessity of trees. He looks upon a tree as a thing that

ought to be cut down and burnt, not as the guardian of our fertility, the natural reservoir of the country and an insurance against drought to those who come alter us. Everywhere the greed of the great modern saws is tearing into the world’s timber supplies, modern machinery must be ted at the expense of unborn generations. Outsiders have long since recognised that New Zealand timbers are incomparable in beauty and value. It is the especial pride of arboriculturists in Germany, in America and elsewhere, that they are inducing New Zealand trees to grow in those countries. Only last year German experts journeyed to this country in order to take every native tree seed away they could lay hands on. The trees that we so ruthlessly destroy are being reared from seed with loving kiuduess in distant Germany and the United States. Everywhere on the Continent, forestry is regarded as ol supreme importance for climatic and utilitarian reasons. The Continental idea is “a third of the larm in trees.” The New Zealand idea is most o( the farm in blackened stumps. No trees in the world are so productive of seeds as New Zealand trees. One has but to take a glance at the common karaka in seed time to understand this, but very little propagation is undertaken. True enough many nurserymen understanding that New Zealand trees will someday be strangers in their own country, are engaged in keeping various tree families alive, and are thus doing a great and useful national work. The State should make it a criminal offence for lessees or owners of new bush land to utterly destroy the bush. The Stale should preach the immense importance of trees, it should jealously guard every possible bit of native forest and plunge into the matter of sane and businesslike afforestation, not as a sentimental undertaking, but as an insurance against national disaster. The extraordinary fertility of the New Zealand soil —almost all New Zealand soil —as a tree growing medium, suggests the obvious duty. The wiping out of vast tracts of forest may be necessary, but it has never been necessary to utterly annihilate every stick of timber on any area. It would do New Zealand destroyers good to see the care bestowed on the raising of trees in naturally treeless countries. The plantations in South Africa are jealously guarded and are, of course, of tremendous importance and value. The average New Zealander would laugh at the feeliug of reverence the veldtdweller has for a tree. As an Ilustration of the foolishness of murdering bush on the hills, it is perhaps permissable to mention that huge areas of India became almost rainless because of the deliberate buruiug of the teak forests generation after generation. The reafforestation of India is one of the triumphs of British administration in the great Empire. Every tree is jealously guarded and for every tree felled the mau who has a license to fell it, must plant live strong young trees. The idea of our sawmilling contractors being wheeled iuto line like this, is almost too dreadful to contemplate. Throughout Europe, not only do private property owners make fortunes by tree growing, but municipalities engage in the necessary work. In New Zealand much more is taken out of the soil than is ever put back and with deliberate and ignorant deforestation the whole productive capacity of tire country will be demiuished. Experts who know what must happen are usually regarded as cranks, but a lime will come wheu they will be regarded as saviours ot their country. There are hundreds ot thousands of acres of land in New Zealand that will never grow a crop half so valuable as timber, aud the Government, which fortunately now consists of men of intelligence aud loyalty may come to the conclusion that the future prosperity, iertility aud humidity of New Zealand absolutely depends ou trees. But it is necessary to light the fearful ignorance that exists on this matter tooth aud nail.