Thirty Million Trees

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 301, 12 March 1928, Page 8

Thirty Million Trees

COMMERCIAL FORESTRY State and Private Enterprise DEVELOPMENT of commercial afforestation, a phase of business enterprise upon which considerable attention has, in New Zealand, been focused from time to time, is reflected in the fact that nearly 50,000 acres of new country was planted in the statistical year of 1926-27. The number of people employed in the business rose from 260 to 482, and the wages bill soared to nearly £95,000 for the year.

'OINUS Radiata, otherwise the familiar pinus insignus, was put down on 49,269 acres of the 49,824 planted. The remaining 550 acres carry serried lines of eucalypts and redwoods, varied with minor plots of other varieties. The actual area planted in redwood, a timber that is in the spotlight of public attention, was 154 acres. On this acreage 84,000 trees were planted—a mere shrubbery compared with the thirty millions of pinus

radiata planted in the same period. Much of the territory thus planted is in the Taupo-Rotorua district, covering country that has so far been found valueless for other purposes. Altogether, 213,308 acres of land had been acquired by afforestation companies by the end of March, 1927. Based on cost, the value of the freehold land was returned at £404,640, which gives an average of £1 19s an acre. Coupled with the area of the State plantations, the total area of artificially planted country in New Zealand is now about 170,000 acres. The progress of commercial afforestation ventures has been phenomenal. At March 31, 1925, the total assets of the companies amounted to £365,453.

A year later the figure had trebled, and in another twelve months it had risen to nearly one and a-half millions. In the year ended March, 1925, shareholders of these concerns paid in actual cash £96,125. In the following year the amount was £360,635, and in the next year, the latest for which returns are available, it was £498,820, an increase of £137,182 over the figures for 1926, and of over £400,000 on the sum paid in 1925. These increases represent remarkable expansion, and their evidence is confirmed by the record of planting operations. In 1924-25 the area planted was 3.244 acres; in 1925-26 it was 15,826; and in 1926-27, as noted, it was 49,524.

Some 4SO people, including a dozen or more women who are either lady clerks, or “nursery-attendants” in the forestry sense, are now enrolled in the service of the forestry companies. Seventy of these are engaged in treeraising, 280 in the work of planting, 40 in maintenance work, and 73 in fire-prevention; while on the administrative side the number at the last return was 25. This does not, of course, include the office and sales staffs of purely broking concerns engaged in placing forestry bonds or shares on the market, though these must be given consderation in any assessment of the influence exerted by forestry enterprises on the labour market of the country. The actual cost of the operations conducted to date is set down, under development, as £676,630. As there can be no revenue, apart from thinnings, until the forests mature, the development account at the end of the period will represent the amount to be realised before profits can be made. PLANTING BY FARMERS Tree-planting has not been restricted to the State forest service and afforestation companies. A certain amount of planting has been carried on by local authorities, and by private business concerns, such as the Waikato coal companies, which plant for pit-props. Farmers, too, in response to propaganda circulated by the Forestry Department, are planting more and more, and they planted 7,000 acres in 1927, compared with 2,800 acres in 1926. A classification of the main islands of New Zealand reveals that 12§ million acres of forest land are left, and that not half of that can be classed as “merchantable” forest. It is calculated that the natural resources will give way, in 40 years, to plantation timbers. In 40 years, then, to-day’s afforestation will reap its harvest.