Sawmilling Section.

Progress, Volume XVI, Issue 11, 1 July 1921, Page 256

Sawmilling Section.

[This Section is published by arrangement with the Dominion Federated Sawmillers' Association (Incorp.) in the interests of the Sawmilling Industry of N.Z.] Acting Editor: ARTHUR SEED.

Mr. Will Lawson’s campaign as Organiser for the N.Z. Forestry League is attracting a considerable amount of attention from the Press throughout New Zealand, and he is certainly doing good work in educating the people in and bringing home to them a realisation or the importance ot this subject. in Canterbury, where Mr. Lawson made a start, there has already been formed a strong branch ot the League, and, with the help of Mr. J . Deans, who is an enthusiast on this subject, he has been interviewing the County Councils and other public bodies and has awakened in them a keen interest in Forestry and Afforestation. In Marlborough also he has done good work, and the movement is afoot there to form a branch of the League. %

The Southland Daily News of May 30th devoted a column and a-half to a description of the opening ceremony of the Waitane bawmill by the Minister of Labour, and to a description of the mill itself. The mill is situate about 15 miles from Gore, and has been started by a local company under the name of the Halliday Co., Ltd. We wish them every success. * * *

We are certainly in accord with the following resolution, winch was recently moved by Mr. Wniteman at a meeting of the Farmers’ Union in Masterton : —■“ That this Executive urges on the Government, through the Provincial Executive, the imperative need for a vigorous prosecution of the Forestry programme as outlined by the Minister; and, further, that in considering the areas for afforestation the hills on the eastern side of the Hutt Valley should be given favourable consideration.” This is certainly a case in point where a large area of land at present utterly unproductive could be utilised to great advantage for afforestation purposes, and this area has the prime essential for this purpose of location near a large and growing centre of population. The whole area comprised in the range of hills from Day’s Bay to Mangaroa, and again the hills around Kajtoke could be resumed by the Government at a very low figure, and the planting and .all necessary work would provide healthy and suitable ocupation for surplus labour from Wellington and surrounding districts during periods of unemployment. The scheme of pfoviding occupation for unemployed now being carried out by the Government under the Forestry Department in the Himitangi district by planting of sand-dune areas might well be applied to the area in question along the Hutt Valley. The advantages of afforestation in areas such as the one

in question as against situations further inland, such as Rotorua and Ffanmer, are so patent as to hardly require explanation, but the main features are accessibility to markets, greater ease of securing labour, short transit from forest to market which would make it possible to secure revenue from firewood, props, etc., from the thinnings long before the main timber crop would be ready for milling, and the fact that low transport cost would allow maximum royalties to be paid as well as allowing a margin for heavier logging costs on account of the rough nature of the hills. We were pleased to note from a paragraph in the Dominion of May 25th that Mr. Will Lawson, official Organiser for the Forestry League, is strongly advocating the planting of “ the bare hills around Wellington.”