Timber Problems

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 284, 21 February 1928, Page 8

Timber Problems

IMPORTED BUTTER BOXES Swedish Shipments As Bludgeon (THIRD OF FOUR ARTICLES) THOUGH its prosperity depends primarily on the building trade, the New Zealand timber industry has interests in other enterprises, notably butter-making and fruit packing. In both these, as in building, New Zealand timber has been subjected to keen overseas competition.

INHERE is an interesting' story behind the first importations of foreign timber for butter-boxes. Until six or seven years ago only white pine (kahikatea) was used, and the butter-boxes were so solid and carefully made that they were like pieces of joinery. Then the prices began to rise, and the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, consid-

ering the trade was being victimised by New Zealand millers, sought quotations abroad. The result was a shipment of Swedish pine, cut into sizes for nailing together. The first shipment was followed by others, but timber from some of the later shipments was rejected because of its resinous qualities. Canadian hemlock and Canadian spruce were also imported, but by this time the competition had forced down the price of kahikatea, and importations for butter-boxes have as a result become less and less in the past year or two. NOTHING LIKE KAHIKATEA

Meanwhile the New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Company had established a box factory of its own at Frankton, and by economising in timber, and introducing new methods of sewing, instead of nailing, the boxes, is conserving supplies of kahikatea, and furnishing its associated butter factories with a cheaper product. The company admits frankly that its importations of timber were largely a bludgeon to force down New Zealand prices. The move was successful, and has sufficed, also, to show that for butter-boxes there is no timber like kahikatea. But even with the most rigid economy the supplies of kahikatea cannot last more than 15 or 20 years.

Since fruit taints less easily than butter, the standard required for fruit-cases is not so exacting as that demanded for butter-boxes. Even pinus insignis, if the quality is regu-

lar, will do; but recent tests conducted by the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Association showed that fruit packed in Canadian hemlock cases was better received in London than fruit packed in New Zealand pinus insignis. The preference has been partly attributed to the thorough kiln-drying to which hemlock Is subjected. The timber is so dry that it absorbs any moisture on the fruit. The pinus insignis container is less absorbent, and the fruit exposed to a correspondingly greater risk of decay. Asked whether future timber orders would be placed in New Zealand or in Canada, officials of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Association were reticent. But they indicated that there had been difficulty in the past with New Zealand timbers, and admitted that a large proportion of this season’s fruit would be packed in Canadian hemlock cases. To the unpr judieed investigator the most surprising thing is that the merits of other New Zealand timbers have not been investigated with a view to their application to these subordinate purposes. Everywhere in the timber business are encountered conflicting points of view, and clashing opinions as to the virtues qf tn e different Indigenous timbers. This is where, to proclaim definite standards, a thorough Government would have stepped in, to determine beyond risk of argument or prejudice the merits of the various materials. ARCHITECTS’ VIEWS

Architects and builders are by no means unanimous in their appraisals of timber qualities. One architect pointed out, in explanation of the fact that there Is no kauri in those two fine new public buildings, the Museum and the University, that no New Zealand timber was exactly suited to the requirements of high-class interior finishing work. The fittings in the Museum are largely oak, rimu and Australian blackwood;’ those in the University are rimu and oak. Most of the imported oak is Japanese, yet New Zealand has in taraire a timber many claim to be the equal, If not the superior, of any imported oak. "While some Auckland architects scoff at taraire, another has finished the interior of his house with it, and considers it will be as lasting as it Is beautiful. Tbe merits of tanakau, another obscure New Zealand timber, obtained recognition when the large plateglass windows of Hoyes Motors, Queen Street, were being erected in 1914. The timber wanted had to be immensely strong, to retain its strength even when cut to a narrow strip, and the builders investigated the merits of every indigenous and overseas timber before determining that tanakau was the best available. If the worth of these and other New Zealand timbers could be accurately determined the result might guide architects and builders to a wider appreciation of their value. If a stimulus could be applied to production in these quality lines, and the use of cheap and often trashy-looking imported finishes discouraged, that would be one direction, at any rate, in which the timber industry’s status could be improved.