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REPORT

CHAPTER I.—FOREST POLICY 1. General Administration. —Further delegation of detailed timber-control activities to relevant trade organizations has allowed increased concentration upon planning and preparatory work for rehabilitation projects, and upon the long-term post-war forest policy statement commenced last year. 2. Staff Organization, Recruitment, and Training.—A policy of making regional administrative positions open to officers of all three divisions —Clerical, General, and Professional —has been adopted as essential to the development of a highly competent and balanced staff. Recruitment for all staff categories, including technical, field, and clerical officers, as well as leading hands and foremen, has been actively pursued as essential to the prompt and effective implementation of post-war rehabilitation projects. The Forest Service Training Centre at Rotorua went into operation during the year with two short courses for timber measurers, which are to be followed by courses in administration for senior field officers, in log scaling and timber cruising for junior field staff, and in general forest work for leading hands and foremen. Post-graduate courses for professional officers will follow next year. 3. Indigenous Forest Resources. —Preparatory work for the National Forest Survey to be undertaken as a major post-war project has been considerably advanced by its assignment to a specialist forest officer, who not only, has the benefit of being one of the officers engaged on the war-time census of British woodlands, but more recently has been studying the latest forest survey methods in North America. The services of this trained specialist will ensure a much earlier completion of the survey than had previously been anticipated. 4. Indigenous Forest Management. —The downward trend in forest reconnaissance, unavoidable during the war period as a result of staff shortages, has at last been arrested and as the result of accessions to the cruising staff important reconnaissance work has been effected and increased activities planned for the current year. The immediate objective of all field-work must still remain the cruising ahead of two years' requirements for all mills operating on State forest, but of equal importance is the reconnaissance and demarcation of other resources which will expedite the development of new mills required during the post-war period either to replace old ones cut out or to further expand production. Wherever the resources are sufficiently large and compact, the objective is to bring areas under working-plan management whereby the forests will be worked continuously for as long a period as twenty, or preferably thirty, years so that not only will efficient plants equipped with modern machinery, &c., be justified, but also very much improved living accommodation and amenities for employees. 5. Indigenous Silviculture. —The evolution of a silvicultural system for rimu still remains the outstanding problem in the management of the indigenous forests. The widespread distribution of the species is regarded as a reason for believing that its silviculture should be simple, but the reverse is the case, an important contributing factor being its shy seeding proclivities and the intolerance of seedlings to light and drought. With a return to normal departmental activities in the post-war period it is planned to assign some of the silvicultural staff to special investigations bearing on these subjects. 6. Exotic Forest Management and Resources. —Assessment surveys and sample plot investigations have been actively pursued as the basis of working plans for all State exotic forests. They are no less essential to the development of a sound national forest policy. Preliminary indications are that the total annual growth in the exotic forests is very much less than commonly believed, so much so that in the State exotic forests it will be necessary to limit sawn-timber production in the immediate future much more than has been envisaged previously if the country's future requirements in highgrade timber are to be met from local sources and not imported. 7. Exotic Silviculture. —The results both of assessment surveys and of trials in the sawing, drying, and utilization of young insignis-pine timber for house building have clearly demonstrated the bad effect of 8 ft. by 8 ft. planting on insignis-pine stands in the pumice lands of the Bay of Plenty and Taupo districts and the wisdom of the Department in reverting to closer spacings. There is little doubt that in the interest of producing a significant proportion of heart as well as defect-free timber every oompartment of insignis pine which can be treated by appropriate silvicultural measures should be managed on at least a forty years' rotation and some even on as long as a seventy years' rotation. Failure to do so can only defeat the national forestry objective of supplying the whole of the Dominion's future softwood requirements in all grades and qualities. Continuing observations upon clear-felled areas of insignis pine in the Rotorua Conservancy show that natural regeneration cannot be relied upon universally even in that district, results appearing to vary with such factors as aspect, exposure, &c. On some of the more recently felled areas on the Whakarewarewa State Forest natural regeneration has been materially poorer than on the earlier cleared areas, and on even the oldest areas in the Waiotapu State Forest results have been so unsatisfactory as to indicate the imperative necessity for further investigating the use of light burning operations as an aid to regeneration and the possible reversion to planting operations for re-establishment. 8. Land Acquisition.—ln land acquisition the Forest Service observes a long-established policy of avoiding the enclosure of extensive areas of good farming land, but requires small areas of good quality soil for the growing of exotic hardwoods, the more extensive planting of which is essential to a sound forest policy and is to be undertaken as a post-war project. 9. Forest Fire Protection and Soil Conservation. —For twenty-five years the Forest Service has successfully protected against fire some 15,000,000 acres of State forest, Crown lands, Native lands, national parks, &c., and thereby made the greatest single contribution by any one national body to

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