MILLED FOREST AREAS

Forest and Bird, Issue 44, 1 May 1937, Page 16

MILLED FOREST AREAS

By Rakau.

KEEP THEM PURELY NATIVE.

SOUND principles of scientific forestry are infringed immediately tree-planters tinker with the pure indigenous timberlands by introducing foreign species. This process of interplanting with alien trees has unfortunately begun in New Zealand to the disgust of all those who treasure the unspoiled vegetation of the land. In State and municipal-owned bush in certain districts, where the timber-millers have taken out the large trees, and where the young growth should be allowed to assert itself undisturbed, this offence against Nature is perpetrated. It is a strange state of mind, _ this indifference to the rightful claims of the vegetation that is native to the soil. In other countries the foresters recognise the superior value of their own timbers. In Java the teak forests are reproduced, generation after generations of cutting, without admixture with inferior foreign trees. Every country with a scientific forestry system strives to reproduce its timber trees and the whole forest life. But here all kinds of fantastic tricks are tried. Rimu trees, the second most valuable timber in the land, are being replaced in one area with the comparatively worthless lawsoniana, which is really best fitted for shelter belts and hedges.

The writer has noted much well-grown lawsoniana in the Waikato and other districts lately, and undoubtedly it makes a first-rate hedge, it grows so thickly and so close to the ground. But as a timber-content tree it is of negligible worth; it cannot seriously be considered a fit substitute for the splendid rimu. Even in water-supply reserves, where felling and milling should not be permitted on any pretext, the natural timber covering of the hills is not respected. Anything, everything is better, apparently, and so we find the local bodies in charge allowing interplanting with all kinds of inferior foreign trees, in the hope that they will smother the young native growth. The vigorous indigenous saplings will probably survive all right, but the spectacle of such an illmatched woodland will sicken the lover of the real New Zealand forest life. The admixture of native and alien species is not only unscientific as a forest scheme but is an offence against the ancient laws that made our forests and renewed them from century to century. Alien species of any kind introduce new problems, probably new insect pests. The only safe, and sightly, plan is to maintain the indigenous life untampered with. Exotics have their own rightful and separate place.