THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1912. OUR PASSING FORESTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10682, 9 July 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1912. OUR PASSING FORESTS.

New Zealand a few years back possessed primeval forests which for natural grandeur were unsurpassed in any portion of the British Empire. Slowly but surely, however, this magnificent asset is yielding to the exigencies of settlement and the fads of political and otlior vandals, until presently, unless the people awaken to their responsibilities, the country will be denuded of its Grod-giveil vegetation, and Ibe left a cold and barren wilderness. Fortunately we have men in iiigh places who ' are imindful for the future, and who are urging with all the eloquence they possess the importance of re-afforesta-Sion. The experience of G<reat Britain •should be a warning to New Zealand. As a Southern writer well says, it is melancholy to reflect that in 1908 Gieat Britain imported £24,000,000 -worth of tim : ber, with an additional '£4,000,000 or £5,000,000 worth of articles manufactured from wood, and fc»f tho wood pulp now used in .so many processes, more especially when we remember that the .Royal .Commission on Afforestation reported in 1909 that 'there was a maximum of 9,000,000 acres in tho United Kingdom suitaMs 'for arboriculture, but not now under timber. Sixty yeans ago the Landes 'district of France afforded -ai precarious livelihood to a few shepherds. Today, owing to judicious tree-planting, , it is reckoned to have added more than £40,000,000 to the wealth of the country, and .supports n large and increasing population. It Una been esti- | ma-ted tlia't bad the forests of Ireland "oeen developed in tlfe same manner, they would now represent a capital value of £100,000.000, and produce an annuinl income which would more than make gocd that £2.000,000 deficit which, is causing -such searching tlf "heart to the taxpayers of G.reat Britain. 111 this matter we have much to learn from thrifty, practical Germany, where the State now} owns some 11,000,000 acres.- of forest— I aibout one-third of the total area under timber— and 'has managed its estates so well for the last 'hundred years, that they mow have a o.npital value of (between £400,000,000 and £500,000,000. The annual profit is steadily

increasing, and 1 .even .now j'.ields ibe- ' tween £0.,000,000 and £6,000,000 not, the price, roughly ©peaking, of four Dreadnoughts! In, addition to this the Forests give employment, regular or intermittent, to 230,000 people, while the number employed in sawxnilling, .and the iwell-nigh innumerable subsidiary industries is enormous. But Germany was wise enough to approach the subject scientifically, while she istill had vast areas of virgin forest, and how has eight colleges and university departments, some of "thorn founded more than a century ago, for traini.ng experts in .forestry, and in addition to this numerous schools for educating foremen and overseers. Similar schools exist in other Continental countries, and there is an accumulated literature on, the suibject which will greatly facilitate the task 'before Great Britain when she puts the work of re-planting seriously in hand. Of recent years courses of instruction in (forestry have been established in Oxford and Cambridge, and many other of the British universities), and since .1904 there lias been a, Schoc-l of (Forestry in the Forest of Dean for working youths and men only. In India,, too, there is a Forest Departcontrolling a huge area of forest land, and the practical experience of its exports will ibe (readily available at Home. It remains for some modern Jolin : Evelyn to rouse Ms fellow-coun-trymen, both in 'Britain and beyond the seas, ifrom their long apathy and ■stimulate their imaginations sufficient to make them see, if it ,be ibut "in a 1 glass darkly," what a vast national 1 treasure-house lies (ready to hand in 'the neglected forests.