SIR JULIUS VOGEL ON THE REPEAL OF THE FORESTS ACT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 246, 7 October 1876, Page 4

SIR JULIUS YOGEL ON THE REPEAL OF THE FORESTS ACT.

Sir Julius Yogel haa addressed a letter on this subject to tbe Wellington Argus y from which the following is an extract:- —

It is with consternation I observe the indication of a desire to repeal thia Act. The experience of the world ia against it. State foresta are the most cherished institutions of the countries that possess them. I need only refer as examples among others to Sweden, Germany, France, .Russia, Prussia, Austria, India, and latest but not least interesting or important, South Australia, On the other hand consider the laments over neglected forestry. What would Fiance be but for the vigorous cultivation of its forests during tbe last few years. A recent writer in th* 4 Edinburgh Review thus expresses him« self :— " Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, Memphis, and Carthage, now waste and even pestilential, were formerly the very hives of human life. The remains of conduits, canals, cisterns, and pools throughout Palestine, and especially through ihe now desert country east of the Jordan, are such aa to explain the accounts on record of the former population of these regions. So thorough has been not only the change of climate, but the denudation of soil caused by the cutting down of the olive*, palms, and other trees of Palestine during the Roman war, that it would be impossible to attach any credit to tbe most venerable accounts of the former fertility, beauty, and population of the Holy Land (its brooks and fountains gushing out of valleys and hills being now replaced by barren and solid rock), without the knowledge that we bave acquired of the fatal effects of the destruction of timber."

Notwithstanding all that man has done for fcjouth America, it is to be doubted whether that continent haa anything like the intrinsic value it possessed when the colored man alone roamed through its vast forests now so frightfully destroyed. There is, I believe, a wide spread feeling of. consternatiou in the United States at the mauuer iv which this great question has hitherto been neglected.

It seems to me tf.at whilst we are striving go hard to advauce the interests of the present generation in New Zealand, it is wise aud graceful to remember those who come after us. Ho public works can alone lor desolated forests. The plains of Canterbury may be covered with railways in less than the interval from youth to manhood of a single life. But it would take two generations to grace those plaios with matured forests. Let us suppose the period bridged over. What would the public debt for railways matter if there were rhe forests to be valued by miilious to set against it. Tbis is but one instance of many. The adoption of a State forest system in New Zealand means not only wealth, but health, happiness, climate, a thousand enjoyments and resources otherwise unknown — means, in Bhort, all the difference between improving the country or allowing it to become less valuable aud less excellent than when we found it in the sole possession of the

native race.