HIDDEN ENCHANTMENTS AND COMMERCIAL WEALTH.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 541, 26 May 1933, Page 7

HIDDEN ENCHANTMENTS AND COMMERCIAL WEALTH.

autumnal colouring. Those nature-lovers to wh'om the beauty of autumnal colouring makes strong appeal should visit the nurseries of the Forest Serviee at Whaka. In the immediate region of the headquarters' building is to be seen almost every conceivable autumn tint, maples, oaks and exotic trees from every land and. clime. Rotorua seems to he ahle to assimilate trees whose natural habitat is wide as the poles. The deodar and the maple, the northern pines and southern euealypt grow and flourish side by side. To the silvoculturist the interplanting of the larch plantations with the redwood (sequoia sempervirens) and the cupressus japonica is exqeptionalfcly interesting. When the larch plantations were tardy in growth, numbers of the evergreens were inter-spaced. This took place some 24 years ago. From the higher level above Whaka and on the golf links the larch- looks like a sea of burnished gold, and through the forest cover are thrust innumerable vivid spears of green — the sequoia finding expression. Not until the inquiring mind has promptad exp'lotration and a nearhand examination made, does the fact that the golden roof is seventy feet above the forest floor become apparent. Unnoticed Beauties. The Conservator of Forests, Mr. R. Morrison, is justly proud of the domain which has deseended to his care and is ever ready to supply information to visitors. The miracle of thermal action has overshadowed those of normal nature and th'e marvels of our exotic forests, their creation and development pass almost unnoticed. It is a pity that it should be so, for to supreme beauty is added a commercial outlook that may profoundly affect the future of the Dominion. Within ten minutes' motor run from every hotel and hostel in town is being establish'ed a lumber industry that not only will in future years supply the Dominion but contribute largely to the resources of Empire. Less than thirty years ago the writer saw trees planted in pure pumice gravel, as bare as a pit, adjacent to the Wairoa Road. Making Fertility. These are now fine plantations, and the floor of bare pumice is now a forest mat. Sucessive disleafings has laid a carpet, warm and soft, over the forbidding rock. You can take it and roll it up. It is the humus that in the years to come will make the fertile land, the seed-bed for a regenerated forest when the parent trees have had their day. a great objeet lesson lies in the panorama of gold and green. Under the eyes of those who can see and the understanding to grasp the significance of the vision that is spread before them.