THE FORESTRY COMMISSION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 250, 12 March 1913, Page 5

THE FORESTRY COMMISSION

COAST SHICLTEI! BELTS. By Telegraph.—Per Press Association:. Dunedin, Tuesday. Before the Forestry Commission. Mr;. Alexander Bathgate strongly urged extensive plantations as shelter belts on the exposed-boasts of the North Island, citing the coastline at Hawera as a. locality where a shelter belt was much: needed." The financial basis of afforestation should he put 011 a sound footing,, so that the work of planting conld be carried on irrespective of Government changes or financial stringency. TheGovernment should appoint a forestry expert. : -, The president and secretary of the Dunedin Builders'and Contractors' Union of Employers forwarded a letter deploring the rapid depletion of timber, and voicing 'the, opinion that the matter was of the utmost importance. Reafforestation of land should he carried on* in a mt>rc vigorous- manner. The Commission inspected some butter boxes which had been imported from the Baltic at p. cost of Is Id, as against Is Sd for locallv-made boxes. Discussion took place on the question of timber for butter boxes, during which it was stated that Australian butter boxes' were made almost exclusively of white pine, and Mr. .T. R. Seott, secretary of the South Island Dairy Association, stated that his association had for years been asking the Government to put an; export duty on white pine.