STATE FORESTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1920, Page 8

STATE FORESTS.

| THE PULL USE OF TIMBER. 1 FAR TOO MUCH WASTED. Important events have happened lately in the New Zealand forests, or rather ,in the circumstances affecting them. In the past two years over 5,000,000 acres of land under the administration of the Lands and Survey Department have been gazetted as provisional Stale Forests and placed under the administration of the Commissioner of State Forests (now Sir Francis Bell). The total area thus designated is now close upon 7,000,000 acres. Some of this land carries no forest; on some of it the timber is at present of low value; but within the total is comprised a Very large proportion of New Zealand's useful timber resources. Among the commodities of which New Zealand has a short supply, and for which the demand is clamorous, timber takes a first place, and one of the most important functions the system which the Forestry Department has laid down .is the organising of a proper and efficient method of increasing this supply. The recently-appointed Director of Forests, Mr. L. Macintosh Ellis, has prepared and had approved by the Commissioner a scheme for the organisation of a skeleton staff more in proportion to the magnitude of the task than the existing one. At present, the Department has only about a dozen officials directly concerned in active forestry work. The scheme comprises the division of the Dominion into seven forest regions. The h"nd office will remain in Wellington, but i ■ntrol will be considerably decentralised in the hands of a Conservator of Forestry in each region. Thee regions will be divided into Idislriets. each of which will be in charge of a ranger. The first aim of thee Department is, in brief, to make the best use of the timber resources. It is estimated that at present only about 25 per cent, of the timber cut or destroyed is used: and that "by proper means this proportion could be increased to fiji per cent. The great loss is occasioned largely by public ignorance of the properties oi' the native timbers—ignorance for which they cannot be blamed, because very little serious research has yet been made' in the matter. A case in point is that there is a. large supply of Southland beech (the co-called "birch"), 'l'.i.li is an admirable timber for many industrial purposes, but is. as yet, not widely used. Another aspect' of the same subject is that certain manufacturers are importing English timber for special constructional purposes, because their designers have ample information about those timbers, but no authoritative data about equally suitable New Zealand woods An effect of this ignorance is that many timbers which are tiow wasted or deliberately destroyed, would, if either properties were known, go into employment, and release a large quantity of building timbers for their best use. Proper measures to test the economic qualities, as well as the rate of growth, of all native timbers are to be made by the Department, and if the results come up to expectations the effect will be to meet much more freely the cry for timber foi houses. The work is .already in progress in the kauri country by Mr. McGregor, of Auckland University, and in Westland by Mr. Fowerakor. of Canterbury College. In view of the prompter results likely to be secured, this research work in regarded as of high importance. It is as vital as a replanting policy, because the unnecessary wastage nowgoing on is greater than the gain due to plantimr. Describing the Department's intentions, the Director stated to a Post representative that the general idea is "first, to house-clean, and .bring order out of chaos; and to dispose of the now available timber in the most businesslike way.'' Cultural measures, so far as native trees are concerned, cannot proceed for some years, because it is not yet known what methods can best lie followed. These will be studied by those in charge of the research work.