The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 26. CUT THEM DOWN!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 373, 26 April 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 26. CUT THEM DOWN!

"Hello!" exclaimed the early settler; "there's a tree; let's chop it down and burn it. There are only about ten pounds worth of timber in it. When it has gone up in smoke, we'll be able to grow five shillings' worth of grass on the spot." And' so ihe chopped and burned and is still chopping and burning. The Government has had to step in once or twice to stay the hand of the vandal, but it has not stepped in sufficiently to prevent irreparable damage. One point of view is that, particularly in some hill country of New Zealand, the native timber is the most valuable crop the land can possibly grow. For many years the northern settler treated the giant kauri as an actual enemy. He has even been known to fire a good forest of timber that took fifteen hundred years to mature. In order to get a few shillings worth of gum, the gum-digger would burn off acres of kauri saplings. Men felled kauri trees to save themselves the clifnb necessary to win the gum exuding from the branches. It was considered good business to kill a tree worth one hundred pounds for one pound's worth of gum. Hillsides with thousands of ■pounds' worth of timber on them have been ruthlessly shaven, and for miles in the Manawatu and the Wairarapa. one may see the scarred hills. The rain iwashes the soil off the hills, so that nothing will ever grow on the bare patches any more; the soil is "washed down into gullies and rivers; the rivers silt up; navigation is stopped; and the disturbed water bites into the land. Because of a lack of common-sense it is necessary in innumerable places to plant; forests of willow trees to prevent erosion. Ordinarily New Zealand had many splendid navigable waterways, and this being the natural method of carrying goods was obviously the cheapest. Apart from the millions of pounds' worth of native timber that have gone up in smoke, the damage done by the vandals is irreparable. In the centre of expanses of denuded country may be seen forlorn bunches of im.ported trees, planted as a sort of apology to shelterless stock. The method has been to destroy a pound's iworth of property for the sake of a potential pennyworth. Some feeble attempts of re-afforestation are made here and there, but the only real method for preventing waste is to insist that no timber that could be milled shall be cut in excess of the natural growth. Not only as a natural protection for the low-lying lands, but as a State asset Switzerland has had a system of forestry in progress for GOO years. Hence her rivers are navigable, erosions are uncommon, and the flats are not spoiled by floods. In New Zealand low-lying towns the floods have only become part of the national life by the misuse of the forests and the rivers. The periodical flooding of Upper Thames towns through the use of the rivers as sludge channels is an example. The kauri has been cut out, the rivers filled up, navigation is stopped and towns are nearly washed away at intervals because it is necessary to fill the pockets of London shareholders. America is tackling the problem of forestry, for America is so greedy and hungry for gold, that where other people use a penknife, so to speak, America uses an electric saw. America is razing its Washington fir (commonly called Oregon pine) at the rate of hundreds of acres a week, but Americans are acute enough to understand that reaping without sowing is bad business. Therefore she has already embarked on an immense scheme of affoi'estation, and a Bill is before Congress which enacts that the right to cut timber, whether on State or private land, shall only be granted on the understanding that the miller must plant one sapling for every timber tree felled. There, is also provision made for the regulation of the quantity that may be cut. America still ■has in the Washington territory enough j fir to keep the mills sawing at the pre-1 sent rate for 40 years, so that even if | the present enormous output were allowed, she would under the proposed system have immense tracts of millablc j timber planted by man at the end of the period. In the course of time, when New Zealand' is really convinced that she has wickedly wasteful with her timber, some such scheme will probably become popular. Timber of all kinds in New Zealand is very dear, and it is possible to land American fir in this country at less price than first-class loqal timber is supplied. The war against trees in New Zealand has been senseless and continuous, for the output is uncontrolled, and everyone has the right of destruction. In countries where natural timber is scarce (a notable case is South Africa) a plantation is prized beyond almost any other crop. When New Zealand is as bare as the South African veldt, the New Zealander who now believes that a tree is only fit to be chopped down and burned as a nuisance, will realise that he and his Australian brother have been fools. His Australian brother, by the way, "ringbarks" tens of thousands of acres oi milling timber, and lets the trees die, and as one sheep may thrive on a piece of ground whereon hundreds of pounds' worth of timber stood, Australia seems satisfied.