FROM WASTE TO WEALTH.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 238, 24 May 1928, Page 1

FROM WASTE TO WEALTH.

World’s Greatest Tree-Planting Effort The Manifold Uses of Timber Essentials From the Cradle to the Coffin

No. X. I Very few people realise the great extent to which timber and softwood timber at that enters into their lives. Literally from the cradle to the coffin, all are dependent upon the forests and their products. Withcut the help of timber products we could not be clothed or fed, and our very existence as civilised human beings would be almost . impossible. This may seem a wide claim, yet if considered for a short time this truth becomes obvious.

Take first of all the question of transport. Practically everything we produce, whether in the raw or manufactured state, comes to market only through the help of wood. It is packed in some form or other of wooden container —boxes, crates or casks—and it is brought to the railhead in wooden carts and wagons. It

is there loaded into trucks built partly of wood, which run over rails laid upon wooden sleepers. Then there are ships, wharves and piers; wood entering largely into the construction of them all. Had it not been for the forests and their products it was practically certain that none of us would be in New Zealand to-day,, for our fathers could never have crossed the seas, and the science of navigation would have been almost indefinitely postponed. Do you use coal? Every coal mine is a large consumer of wood. If wood becomes scarce and dear, the price of coal goes up, and every industry depending on coal as a source of power is at once affected, i Timber All Around. Think again of your houses and furniture. Look around you in any I room wood everywhere. Chairs,

tables, floors, doors, window frames, rafters, beams, possibly the very fire in the grate, all are of wood. Do you indulge in any form of sport? Cricket bats, tennis racquets, golf sticks, fishing rods, billiard tables and cues, gramophones, dancing floors, can you make any of them without wood ? These uses of the forests as suppliers on a gigantic scale of raw material on which countless industries depend are so numerous, and so obvious, that there is little need to stress them. Still there is one more item news. An Age of News. This is an age of news. We all v-ant the latest news, we all read the newspapers, but how many when they pick up their paper stop to think that it is composed of practically 100 per cent wood pulp. At the present day the world’s yearly consumption of wood for the manufacture of newsprint alone amounts to no less than 16 million tons. Not only timber, but many other things also come from the forests—tans, dye stuffs, oils, charcoal, honey, acetic acid, ammonia, acetylene, photographic films, celluloid, soap, varnish, camphor, gramophone records, artificial silk, explosives—all these depend very largely upon forest products for their raw materials. Indirect Benefits. The forests also play a very important part in our national life by the indirect benefits which they confer in their influenc - ' upon water supply. It is to the fc- est cover on the water-shed areas that we owe our

full reservoirs; it is this forest cover, which, by acting as a sponge, absording the rainfall gradually into the subsoil and giving it off again gradually in the form of springs and clear gently running streams, prevents floods, silting and erosion. Already unfortunately-' there are many places in New Zealand where it is easy to see something of the injurious effects resulting from unwise denudation of water shed areas. It is necessary, therefore, to admit that forests and their products affect very intimately, at almost every turn, the personal life of each one of us. Obvious Questions. The obvious questions thus follow: From what source are we in New Zealand to obtain the timber supplies we need ? Are we to produce them here, or are we to rely upon imports ? At the present time New Zealand with its comparatively small population is importing every year timber to the value of £1,000,000 sterling. It is also importing paper to the value of another £1,000,000. That is to say, we are sending out from this country every year in goods or in cash £2,000,000 for essential products which we should and could produce ourselves. Are we to continue this course or are we to aim at becoming self-sup-porting ? The answer to this question is that we must, if we can, produce our own supplies for three very sound reasons. Three Sound Reasons. The first reason is one which we

may call expediency. It is not wise to allow the country to become dependent on outside sources of supply for raw materials which are necessary for its national existence.

The second reason is what may be called one of moral obligation. We have in New Zealand exceptionally favourable conditions for the growth of certain classes of softwood timber. We also have very large areas, officially estimated at over 5,000,000 acres of waste and deteriorating lands. There is thus surely a moral obligation upon us of this generation to strive to put these waste lands to some good use, and to hand them on to those who shall come after us in a better, and not in a worse, condition than that in which we ourselves inherited them.

The third reason is one of grim necessity. However much we may desire to do so, indefinitely rely upon imports to supply our needs. The world’s supplies of timber, particularly of softwood, which are the most generally useful and consequently are the most generally in demand, have been seriously depleted, and there is a real danger of a worldwide shortage within the next tw-enty to thirty years unless each individual country takes immediate and earnest steps to provide against it. It must not be forgotten that well over 80 per cent of all timber used in the world to-day is softwood. Details of its serious depletion will be given in the next article.