620 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



hardly comes within the observation of later arrivals and 

 of the younger generation of our town populations— namely, 

 the deplorable destruction of almost all forms of indigenous 

 vegetation which is taking place throughout the country. 



Few, of our townspeople at least, are at all aware of the 

 great and increasing extent of this destruction, which is seen 

 not only in the shrinkage from various causes of the area of 

 standing bush, but in the thoughtless and wanton demolition 

 of " specimen " plants that have survived the general wreck, 

 and would, if permitted to remain, contribute largely to the 

 interest and beauty of the landscape. A group of graceful 

 fern-trees, growing in some damp and sheltered corner, have, 

 perhaps, just managed to escape the devastating fire of the 

 clearing ; but, to save the trouble of splitting a few slabs, 

 they are cut down to patch a fence or to build an outhouse. 

 A lovely nikau palm has focussed the beauty of some little 

 green clump that stands like an oasis amid the desert of 

 charred stumps and bleaching skeletons ; but, with the stately 

 koraus growing beside it, it is slaughtered to furnish cheap 

 decoration for a country ball-room. A rugged old puriri, 

 scorched and torn, is slowly renewing its youth with a vitality 

 rare amongst New Zealand trees. It has been contemptuously 

 allowed to stand because its gnarled trunk will not yield a 

 length of posts, or because it was too hard to chop up for fire- 

 wood. One would fain hope that it was safe ; but, alas ! its 

 buttressed roots offer a too-convenient place for the road- 

 contractor to " sling his billy," and it is slowly roasted to 

 death, while the road-contractor and his gang smoke their 

 after-dinner pipes beneath its shade. 



Now, the saddest part of it is that this loss is quite irre- 

 trievable. A nikau or a fern-tree, or, indeed, with few excep- 

 tions, any native tree or shrub, once destroyed, is, under 

 ordinary conditions, never replaced. The seedlings, as they 

 appear above ground, are at once browsed off by cattle or 

 sheep ; while, as to the wealth of ferns, which in the bush 

 in its natural state occupy every available inch of space, they 

 are in settled districts soon trodden down or consumed : in 

 fact, for the greater part of our town populations they are 

 practically non-existent ; they have vanished with the bell- 

 Isird and the tui, and must now be sought amongst the far-olf 

 mountain-ranges whose steep crests and gullies are as yet 

 comparatively untrodden by the ever-encroaching cattle of 

 the settler. 



The necessity of making some stand against this lament- 

 able destruction has been recognised by the people of New 

 Zealand in the setting-apart of blocks of land throughout the 

 colony as State forest-reserves, not the least valuable of which 

 is that of the Little Barrier Island, a place eminently suitable, 



