Vegetable Productions of New Zealand.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3747, 30 December 1880, Page 2

Vegetable Productions of New Zealand.

The following is the essay by Miss McFarland, in competition for the Yogel prize, which was highly commended by the Examiner, and which we promised to insert in a late issue of our journal:—

Any person going from the Thames, where there is abundance of timber, to Canterbury, where there is none, would see that it forms a great part of our wealth. We can use it for building houses and ships, for constructing wharves, and for making furniture; while the people of.Canterbury have to import theirs at a great expense. Besides this several hundred men get their living by cutting down the trees and floating them down the river to town. Timber is also one of our great exports, and the country receives from this source alone an annual income of about £50,0 CD. The part of Auckland province northwards from the Thames supplies by far the larger portion of this income; Wellington supplies the next.

Hokitika and Dunedin supply some, but not much, and Canterbury has, te import its timber from other places. The principal timber trees in the North Island are the Kauri, Totara, Kihikatea, Rimu, Furiri, Pohutukawa, Bata and Manuka.

In South Island the Totara, Kahikatea, Bimu, Puriri, Manuka and Beech.

The Kattbi tree supplies the most valuable timber we possess. Its range only extends from Cape Keinga to the Thames, and the best trees grow along thf Wairoa river, the Hokianga river and the ranges from which*the Kauaeranga flows. Thousands of logs are floated down the Kauaeranga river, where they are cut into posts and boards for houses and ships, for furniture, and for exporting. Very durable shingles also are made out of the heart. The tree itself grows to a height of 140 and 150 feet, with a bole 60 feet high and 13 feet in diameter, and is cut into spars and masts for ships.. The largest spar was cut at the Hokianga river; it measured 106 feet in length, and was 2 feet square at the smaller end. Kauri Gum is a kind of resin deposited by forests which once grew in places that are quite barren at present. It is dug from a depth of three to five feet/ and forms a very valuable export for varnishmaking. The value of the amount sent from Auckland in the year 1877 was £118,000.

The Totaba comes next in importance to the Kauri. The wood of this tree stands exposure to the weather for a long time, and for this reason is used for piles in wharfs, for sleepers in railways, and for fencing. The Totara, Rimu, and Kahikatea form the timber trees of Wellington, and the export of them in the year 1850 was £19,000. The Kahikatea or White Pine is a tall conifer growing in large swamps along the Waikato river. The wood is used for lining houses, for boxes aud for furniture, but it will not staud exposure to the weather as it shrinks and soon decays.

The Rimtt or Ued Pine of Otago is a very handsome tree in the bush. The wood is used for furniture and cabinetmaking, and polishes like Mahogany. The Pueibi, or New Zealand Oak, possesses very durable timber, which is used in wharves, for sleepers in railroads, and for fencing. Puriri is principally used for these purposes because it can stand exposure longer than any other, and the only fault to find with it is that a kind of grub makes holes through it in all directions. Pohuttjkawa is a large tree growing on high cliffs near the ea shore. The branches are much in request for knees'in ships, because they are crooked and the wood is very tough and durable. The Eata is a tree growing on hills at some distance from the sea shore. The wood is very hard, and is used in ship* building. The Manuka grows on rather level ground. It is a small tree, about 2 feet in diameter. The wood is used for axe handles and fencing. ~ i This tree and the Kata form the great firewood trees of North Island. Bakers and otherd who need a hot flame use. Tawa, because it lights easily atfd heats the oven quickly. Beech •is a small tree covering -large extents of ground in Canterbury, where it is used for firewood and sometimes for lining houses. The principal plants in New Zealand for clothing are the Flax or Harakeke, the Ti and the Toi. When Europeans settled in this country^ their great export was for flax and flax' 1 mills for preparing the fibre were built all over the country; but now many of these mills are closed and the amount exported is not nearly so much as it used to be. The Maories made a smaller kind of Ti or Cabbage tree into warmats to serve as a protection to the' body against arrows, and they dyed those mats blue black'with Mako Mako. They also used the Har'akeke and Toi for mats as clothing, and for kits to convey their goods from place to place, and to store the Kumera and Tare.

The Kumeea, Taro, and Hue, were the great itapUs of food among the Maoriei

and they took great pains in the cultivation, but these three do not flower in New Zealand and are propagated by shoots. Smaller fruits and roots were also eaten by them in time of great scarcity as the Fern root, the berries of the £araka, Tawa, Tataramoa and Kohutuhutu. There is also abundance of food in New Zealand for animals. The cattle straying in the bush eat the New Zealand rice grass, which, although coarse, soon makes them fat. The wild pigs so numerous in some places of the bush, feed almost entirely on the bulbs of the orchids; and the sheep on the hills of Canterbury that supply so many million pounds of wool every year are fattened on New Zealand plants. Fungus is a food plant not eaten by either Europeans or animals, but, it forms a great export to the Chinese market. The New Zealand plants for dyeing, tanning, and medicine are not much used, because Europeans brought the plants for these purposes with them from England. The mako mako, hinau, and tanakaha were used by the Maories. The tanakaha gave a blue dye, the hinau a black dye, and the make mako a blue black dye used for war cloaks. The plants for tanning are the barks of the hinau and white mangrove. .Europeans use the kohe kohe for medicine, also the boiled root of the harakeke, and they make'a kind of sa Ti. npaiiila out of tlie bailed supple-jack root. There are a number of plaits, as the horopito and kawhia that are believed to be useful as they are closely allied to medicine plants of other countries. Captain Cook used wild celery and the stewed leaves of the manuka or ..ti-tree as a remedy against scurvy. A New Zealand forest has usually a rather sombre appearance, because most of the trees—as the Conifers, the Rewarewa, the Tawa, and IJinau—are a dull green color, but these are set off by the dark green foliage of the Puriri and Karaka, by the Nekau Palm and the Tree Ferns, and in spring by the white flowers of the Clematis, Senecio, and White Kata.

The trunks of the trees are seldom bare, because the climbing plants and the plants that grow on the trees cover them. The Eata and Tataramoa climb to the tops of the highest trees; the Mangamanga hangs around the bole; the Tawhera covers the trunk with its flaxlike leaves ; and the Astelia grows in large tufts on the branches, so th#t when you look up the side of a hill from the ridge, you can see the forest that looks like a patch-work of different shades of green. . : :;'...•••■.■... . .'• •., .■: •- :