446 Transactions. 



will quickly disappear. In a very few years the kauri and the totara will 

 be exhausted, and the rimu and the kahikatea, the black-birch, and the 

 niatai will not last for ever. At the present moment, owing to the rising-^ 

 price of timber, trees that a few years ago would have been coiisidered 

 inaccessible are being brought to market, while bushes that would have 

 been looked upon as worthless in the past are now being worked for any- 

 thing that will cut up into a plank or a piece of scantling. All this tends 

 to the more rapid denundation of the country, followed by the climatic 

 and topographical changes already described ; and, as in America, in the 

 Scandinavian Peninsula, and elsewhere, as the pulp industry follows the 

 sawmill, once the larger timber has become exhausted, so doubtless it will 

 he before long in New Zealand, and then the deforestation, with all its 

 disastrous consequences, will become more rapid and complete. 



It is satisfactory to notice that there is a dawning improvement in public 

 opinion on this matter. Several well-timed articles have lately appeared 

 in the newspapers of the Dominion, amongst which was a most thoughtful 

 and logical exposition of the subject in a series of papers by Mr. J. P.. 

 Grossman in the Netv Zealand Graphic, since reprinted under the title of 

 " The Evils of Deforestation." The Government also seems to be waking 

 up to a sense of the importance of conserving some of the remnant of the 

 forest before it is too late. And quite recently the Under-Secretary for 

 Lands, Mr. W. C. Kensington, in reply to a criticism of the policy of the 

 Department in withholding from settlement certain lands on the Wanganui 

 watershed, very wisely pointed out that, unless the forest in that locality were 

 rigidly protected, the famous '" New Zealand Rhine," not only as a beauty- 

 spot but as a navigable river, would soon be a thing of the past. While 

 all this is very satisfactory, it must be remembered, as I pointed out in a 

 former paper, that reservation must be more than reservation on the map. 

 To be of any practical use reservation must be made with ;i barbed-ware 

 fence, as, if cattle and pigs are allowed to enter, the fire will follow sooner t)r 

 later, and the end will begin. The folly of neglecting this simple expedient 

 has been amply exemplified in the Taranaki Mountain reserve, the Wai- 

 takerei Ranges, and in the Waipoua Kauri Forest, where much of the bush 

 has been destroyed. 



But while we have a right to demand from the Government such a 

 protection of the public interest as is involved in the conservation of such 

 portions of the existing forest as may be consistent with the interests of 

 settlement, as well as in the reafforestation of the open land when such a 

 measure may be practical and desirable, a great deal of good might he 

 effected by private enterprise. In the neighbourhood of Melbourne it has 

 been noticed that the hot winds and dust-storms, that are such a disagree- 

 able feature of the Victorian climate, have lost much of their fierceness 

 since the suburbs have been planted ; while in the Waikato all old settlers 

 are agreed that since the plantations of Pinus insignis, poplars, &c., 

 which are so conspicuous in that district, have grown up the frosts have 

 of late years not been nearly so severe as they were. 



If legislation is to be invoked in this matter it might be well to consider 

 the advisabihty of making it compulsory, in certain areas, for every land- 

 owner to plant and keep under timber a certain percentage of his holding. 

 Such a measure would not only be of incalculable benefit to the country 

 at large, but would be of very material advantage to the settler himself, 

 as experiment has already proved that there is no more paying crop than 

 a plantation of timber-trees. 



