HUGE KAURI TREE.

Shannon News, 23 March 1923, Page 2

HUGE KAURI TREE.

DISCOVERED NEAR 110K1ANGAL

One of the largest, if not the largest, trees in the world has been discovered in the busli at Wailiou, Holdanga. It is a huge kauri tree, Un?vast Irunk rising to a height of 75 feet before being broken by the first branch, and measuring 22ft in diameter, arid 66ft, or approximately a chain in girth.. A well known bush expert estimates the tree to contain over 195,000 super l'eet of timber, sufficient to build three double-storied hotels of twenty rooms each from floor to ceiling, it is to be hoped.that this remarkable tree will be zealously guarded from destruction and preserved to show future generations what the lordly kauri at its best was like. From a marketable point of view it would be quite impossible to fall it, much less break it down, no mill possessing saws big enough to tackle it. The age of the giant is estimated to be at least 2000 years, and carefully conserved it lias another thousand years of life before it. The royalty which would be forthcoming from, a tree of such dimensions would be approximately £730, while the present retail price is estimated at over £3OOO. Sir D. L. Hutclien, in bis book on the mammoths of the to rest, gives America’s greatest tree as one possessing' 140,619 board feet.—Forestry Journal.