Future Forestry Work

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 815, 8 November 1929, Page 8

Future Forestry Work

Training Ground for Students

WORK of far-reaching consequence is being done around Auckland by students of the School of Forestry, attached to the Auckland University College. The forest-clad slopes of the Waitakeres provide a wide field for research in New Zealand’s native woods.

Even the section of 53 acres at Swanson, vested in the College Council, contains almost every variety of native tree except beeeli, giving the students a unique opportunity of studying growth and variety in relations to conditions of soil and weather.

The training course provided by the university is not merely academic. On two week-ends of every term an official party of forestry students visits the Swanson station, where practical work is done. Diaries are kept showing the course of their investigations, and charts of marked trees show the rate of growth of many varieties in the locality. Professor Hugh Corbin, who is in charge of the university school, checks all observations and gives advice where necessary. Students also spend their vacations on afforestation work in various parts of New Zealand. A number of plots have been planted on the Swanson station with kauri and totara, and within a few years it is hoped to have several acres laid out in growing trees for experimental purposes. About half of the 53 acres is in native bush. The area was milled over many years ago, but there is a wealth of regeneration showing even where the tea-tree at present is supreme.

The school is sadly in need of funds for fencing off these experimental sections, as the work of years may be destroyed in a few hours by straying cattle or by picnickers who are not fully in sympathy with the students* aims. Native plants, too, have often been removed by parties of children. VALUE OF SCHOOL

The value of the school to the country in training experts, as well as in providing vocational training, cannot be over-emphasised. New Zealand will probably be an exporting country during a famine in soft-woods, but apart from this there is much that could be done in growing locally the timber that is now being imported from overseas.

For instance, over £250,000 was spent during a recent year in importing wattle bark, which could easily be grown here. The utilisation of what otherwise must be waste land has also to be considered.

A number of the students at the Auckland school are doing special study. One has investigated the growing of eucalypts in the Auckland Province, particularly in the northern peninsula, measuring a large number of specimens and making close studies in both soil and growth, which will be turned to advantage as opportunity offers. Others are specialising in pinus

insignus studies, and some are paying special attention to kauri. The value of the Dominion's forests has been estimated at £100,000,000, but it is actually much more than that. This sum represents the amount that the present forests, would bring if converted into timber, but does not take into consideration the tremendous indirect value of the trees to the country. Hundreds of acres of beech trees along the snow-line of the Southern Alps may be considered worthless from a milling point of view, but nevertheless they are a very real asset in keeping avalanches from the valuable forests farther down the slopes. Similarly the 25,000 acres of trees in the City Council's catchment ‘area are invaluable in keeping the water supply pure and fresh, although their commercial value is nil. The smaller timber at present below milling size cannot be allowed as worthless since it will be the forest of tomorrow. Great as is the future of forestry in the Dominion, there is room for only one school, according to a Royal Commission which investigated the position four years ago. All are agreed that either the school at Christchurch or the one at Auckland will have to be closed, but as yet the Government has not decided which is least necessary. AUCKLAND’S CLAIMS The claims of Auckland, a tree province, cannot be overlooked, with its facilities for training in the Waitakeres right at its doors. It is essential that a national view be taken of forestry when the decision is made. Most of the Dominion’s students in this subject are in Auckland. Southern endowments may be pleaded by supporters of the Christchurch school, hut this cannot be taken as a deciding factor, as bequests from both Auckland and Wellington were pooled to support the Massey Agricultural College at Palmerston North. With her huge forest areas, New Zealand may be in the same position as a hospital without doctors if this question is not tackled resolutely. The present position is that the Dominion can absorb all her forestry graduates and can offer them a better field than any other country in the world. C.R.