152 Transactwus. — MiaceLlaneous. 



efforts of the x\menities Society, are having a decidedly good 

 effect ah'eady on the environs of Duiiedin, and thus indirectly 

 on all those who may see, as we in Dunedin have seen, the 

 waste places, if not " blossom as the rose," at least become 

 places where the eye may refresh itself with the sight of well- 

 grown and well-cared-for trees and flowering shrubs. Turning 

 again to the forests of the country, and regarding them as the 

 property of the nation, what do we find to be the state of 

 affairs ? The area of forest-covered land at the present time 

 is, roughly speaking, twenty and a half millions of acres. The 

 State forest reserves, including those made for climatic pur- 

 poses, amount to 1,141,778 acres. The area of the North and 

 South Islands, with Stewart Island, being about 66,341,000 

 acres, there is, therefore, nearly a third of New Zealand still 

 bush, and reasonable provision seems to have been made by 

 the State for the protection of river-sources, etc. Several 

 Governments have also encouraged plantation of areas in 

 treeless districts by either bonuses or grants of land. The 

 Vogel Government in particular employed a well-qualified 

 expert — Captain Campbell Walker, of the Indian Forestry 

 Department- — to report on the forests ; and, although the ex- 

 amination was unavoidably a hurried one, and there was great 

 difficulty in getting reliable statistics, the report presented was 

 a valuable one. It points out that, though there was no inmie- 

 diate prospect of a dearth of timber or of injurious effects from 

 clearing, it was imperative that State reserves should be made, 

 not only for domestic reasons, but with a view of providing 

 revenue for the initial expenses and maintenance of a scientific 

 department of forestry, and for the replanting denuded hill- 

 sides and plains destitute of timber. He also points out that 

 no forests, however large, are inexhaustible unless worked 

 under systematic principles which insure precautions being 

 taken against waste in the procuring of the timber and proper 

 methods followed for reproduction and protection against fire 

 and damage from animals. Again, in the case of the so-called 

 inexhaustible forest of the wet West Coast, a great proportion 

 is situated in very inaccessible places, and is of little or no 

 comniercial value as timber; besides which, in the case of 

 narrow valleys with steep, shingly sides, covered with but a 

 thin coating of vegetable deposit, we cannot be too careful 

 how the forest is removed, the result of any^ general or 

 extensive clearing being that the little soil there is is soon 

 washed away, leaving bare hill-sides of no value for any pur- 

 pose, and resulting, by the rapid pouring-off' of the rain-water, 

 in most disastrous fioods, followed by long and often equally 

 disastrous droughts. 



Tills is so well known and recognised on the Continent of 

 Europe that what is known as "selection felling," by which 



