WELLINGTON CITY RESERVES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4972, 28 February 1877, Page 3

WELLINGTON CITY RESERVES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES.

Si B) —Wellington has, so far as I am aware, but two reserves within the city for the purposes of recreation—the cricket ground and Botanical Gardens. The streets are narrow, and the want of such open spaces will be severely felt in a few years' time. The founders of the city, however, seem to have compensa- | ted to some extent for interior reserves by setting aside an almost continuous belt from Pipitea to Magazine Point, and it seems to me high time that this magnificent reserve should be appropriated to its intended use. I venture to make a few suggestions. The old Town Board cut up this belt into sections and leased them for grazing purposes ; but these leases are about to expire, and I think before again leasing the reserve the 1000 acres unalienated should be carefully surveyed. A hundred acres or so might be let as building site 3 for terms of twenty years, renewable every ten years on payment of a fine fixed beforehand. In the course of a few years these would produce from £SOO to £IOOO a year, in addition to the pastoral leases, which are doubtless much more valuable now than they were fourteen years ago. The whole of this rental should be devoted to.roadmaking, fencing off suitable portions of the belt for planting. One continuous road of easy gradient should be properly surveyed, and at first such pathways as intersect the Botanical Gardens might be constructed, and from time ■ to time, as funds permitted, be improved, until at last a good carriage drive would encircle the city, and thus afford a ride of varied interest and beauty, not surpassed by any city in the colony. Trees for planting doubtless would be supplied free of cost from the Botanical Gardens, and many of our citizens who take an interest in arboriculture would willingly contribute the thinnings of their plantations for the purpose. In order to ensure something ornamental in the leased building sites, the kind of fence and the designs for the buildings might be submitted to a sub-committee appointed for the purpose, assisted perhaps by the City Engineer. I should not omit to mention that the Hon. Mr. Khodes, the lessee of sections Nos. 2,3, and 4 of the belt, in Tinakori District, has, at his own expense, constructed such a path as I have suggested through the sections, and leading to the summit of the range. The whole rental of these reserves for a time was devoted to the formation of streets in the city. Subsequently, chiefly, I believe, through the exertions of the Hon. Mr. Mantell in the Legislative Council, a portion of the rental has been expended upon a more legitimate object—the improvement of the Botanical Gardens. I have never seen the leases of the Town Belt, but it is fair to presume that the lessees have full power to treat the property as may be most profitable to them, and consecpiently with, I believe, only one exception, the few beautifully wooded galleys (I allude to the Tinakori ranges chiefly) have been ruthlessly ravaged by the axe and by fire, and another dry summer will probably see the complete extirpation of the native forest trees

which contributed so much to the beauty and usefulness of the belt.

It seems a pity that whilst legislating for the conservation and plant'ng of forests, we should have allowed the destruction of the few specimens of our native timber.—l am, &c, Agricola.