AFFORESTATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1787, 9 February 1918, Page 3

AFFORESTATION.

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER. A deputation from the Forestry League and the Board of Agriculture waited upon the Prime Minister yesterday morning to urge that arrangements should he made for going on with scientific forestry at the end of the war. The deputation was introduced by Mr A - H. Field, ALP., for Otaki, and the speakers besides Mr Field were Sir James Wilson, Mr Reynolds, and Mr H. I. von Haast. Some very interesting pointsere brought out. Mr Massey, in reply, stated that just at present it was not possible to do very much in the direction suggested by the deputation, but arrangements were already being made so that when the war came to an end forestry would he taken up energetically. In a few weeks it would he placed under another Minister, who would probably be able to give more time to it than was the case with himself; hut he was very glad to he able to say that even during the war period this important matter had not been neglected. According to official statistics, there were to-day in the Government plantations (17,500, 000 trees, and 30,000 acres had been fully planted. There was a difference of opinion as to whether a scientific expert in forestry should be obtained from some other country, or whether we should go on with the officers already in the employ of |he Government; and, in justice to the lattei’, he was hound to say they had done particularly good work under, at times, discouraging circumstances; but the matter would be fully considered and gone into as soon as an opportunity offered.