AFFORESTATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 305, 19 May 1911, Page 4

AFFORESTATION.

INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS. Mr. R. D. Hay, Inspector of Forests for New South Wales, who recently inspected New Zealand's system of afforestation, made some interesting remarks in an interview with a Sydney Daily Telegraph representative on his return to Australia. Mr Hay says that denudation, largely the result of deforestation, has wrought conspicuous evils. When .the trees and their root reticulation are destroyed, hillsides, rendered unstable, begin to slip into the streams; floods carry away the gravelly substance down into the river?, and scatter it over the banks, destroying fertile alluvial land, or deposit it in -bonis, to the danger of navigation. Streams are liable to change their courses, and riparian troubles ensue. These processes, general enough, liave a special application in New Zealand, owing to the. large proportion of hilly country which lends itself to erosion when deforested, and owing to the fact that natural regeneration of the forest cannot be looked for as in New South Wales. In that colony the vigorous growth of trees restores a damaged area in a few years, but in New Zealand Mr. Hay found that ''almost any fire at nil seems to kill the bush at ou'ec." He thinks that the Dominion has a difficult problem aliead of it in dealing with the consequences of denudation. Afforestation operations in New Zealand by means of prison labor have resulted in a total of about 10,000 acres being planted. In connection with the plantations a proportion of free labor is employed. There is no doubt, says Mr. Hay,' that from the standpoint of afforestation they are doing a valuable work, and are doing it extremely cheaply. Another good feature is that they are dealing with waste lands that are incapable of being profitably u-ed for any other purpose. Speaking generally, the trees range from three to twelve years, and the plantations are in a very healthy and flourishing condition. Mr. Hay explained that tile question of the prisons policy was a matter quite apart from his investigation, "but," he added, "if the Government should decide to utilise prison labor for forestry work, there is no doubt, that there is a very large field in New South Wales for the improvement of the natural forests and for the planting of exotic species of timber." At present the scarcity of labor is a verv serious factor in. forestry operations. Returning to the indigenous forests of New Zealand, Mr. Hay said that the methods of working were very much on the same lines as those adopted in New South Wales, but the Dominion Government did not spend nearly as much as did New South Wales in supervising the working and in enforcing stringent regulations for the protection of young timber. Kauri (which a Bellinger merchant recently described as the finest timber in Australasia) is sent to New South Wales in sailing ships in exchange ior their hardwoods, and white pine (kahikatea) is also largely exported from New Zealand for butler-box purposes. Asked whether the Dominion supplies of these timbers were not being largely trenched upon, Mr. Hay was of opinion that they were. An export duty on kauri, with a view to restricting its export, had been advocated in New Zealand. 'T don't know whether it would not pay them better to keep their kauri,' said Mr. Hay. "I don't think they have too much. And they may also want their white [line for their own purposes. For local purposes. New Zealand has in kauri, totara. and rimu, extremely valuable timbers."