TREE PLANTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1939, Page 9

TREE PLANTING

CENTENNIAL SCHEME FOR SCHOOLS. PREPARATIONS IN MANY DISTRICTS. It is mentioned in “New Zealand Centennial News” that the education authorities throughout the Dominion are making a special effort to have available for planting in 1940 large numbers of native shrubs and trees. One object of.the Centennial treeplanting scheme is to encourage the growth and cultivation of as many representatives as possible of the native flora as it existed in the school district a hundred years ago. In many cases some little research is necessary, for often the earlier vegetation has been entirely destroyed and there is nothing left, save in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, of the tangled forest that once covered the land. It is hoped, therefore, that native trees and shrubs, herbs, and grasses will be grown which are individually representative of the species that existed on the school-site at an earlier period. It cannot be hoped in most cases that the vegetation as a whole can be reproduced, for what was destroyed in a night took Nature a millenium to establish. The aim has been to raise the quick-growing species in profusion, so that there will be shelter foi the slower-growing and shade-loving plants in the area finally planted up. Tn the majority of cases, no doubt, some corner of the school-grounds will be set aside as a native arboretum, and. if that is already done, more trees will be added to it. In other cases it is known that the schools are co-operat-ing with the local authority and are growing the plants that will be used to establish a Centennial memorial area: in yet other cases the school is to plant a piece of waste land, a gully, or an area on the roadside which at present is hideously barren.