94 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to copy. All details are given in my report; but it may be 

 noted here that, while an average of 2S. per acre per year is 

 spent on roads, the proportion of planting to natural regenera- 

 tion is only i per cent. 



" For reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, it 

 has been thought that the valuable native forest of New Zealand 

 should be replaced by artificial plantations of exotics — a quite 

 unusual proceeding in forestry. To do this effectively the cost 

 would be quite prohibitive ; nor is such a high expenditure 

 justified, considering the risk which naturally attends the planting 

 of exotic trees. This risk is five-fold, as detailed in the pages of 

 my report. The cost of the plantations up to date is at the rate 

 of ;^i3 per acre, or with the inevitable interest charge, ,£6^ per 

 acre. The total area planted is 30,000 acres, so that the money 

 sunk up to date in forest plantations approaches ^^^2, 000, 000. 

 These plantations can not be expected to equal improved native 

 forests. Plantations are required in New Zealand, but for 

 special purposes only, such as eucalypt plantations for railway 

 sleepers in the north, and to form suburban forests near towns, 

 for defensive purposes, for recreation, and to lower appreciably 

 the cost of living. They are unknown in England, but common 

 elsewhere in Europe. 



" It is shown in my report that, for cultivation and develop- 

 ment on the European plan, the ordinary New Zealand bush is 

 worth to-day from ;^3oo to ^500 per acre; so that the present 

 plan of destroying the most valuable forests in the Southern 

 Hemisphere and replacing them by risky plantations of exotics 

 means a certain net loss to the country of ;^365, or more, per 

 acre — namely, ^300 or more to cover the value of the native 

 forest, and ;£6^ for the cost of laying down forest plantations to 

 replace the lost forest. This is why forest demarcation is so 

 urgent, in order to stop at once this unnecessary waste. 



" To put New Zealand forestry into the position of other 

 civilised countries, the two urgent measures immediately 

 necessary are (i) forest demarcation, (2) the formation of a 

 technical non-political Forest Department, on the lines of the 

 Forest Service of the United States of America." 



