DISCUSSION ON MR MACDONALD'S PAPER. 7 



Macdonald will agree that the question of taking precautions 

 against fire is one of the most important. There is, I believe, 

 some regulation under which it is possible to close plantations 

 at the dangerous age against the public. I know of nothing 

 else which will prevent it, and I speak with some experience of 

 fires, because in the great country where I have been for some 

 years fires are the chief cause of forest destruction, and although 

 I believe that in Australia you could plant timber with greater 

 prospects of profit than perhaps in any other country in the 

 world, one would hesitate to undertake great operations there 

 because of the fire risk, and because of that alone. In this 

 country, however much one may desire to see the freest possible 

 access for the public to land — and I for one have always had 

 great sympathies in that direction — I believe that in commercial 

 timber areas where there is risk of fire there should be power, 

 subject to the consent of the Forestry Commission, to close 

 plantations at a dangerous age. I think this is a most necessary 

 precaution to take if we are to incur any great expenditure on 

 planting operations. As to the price of plants I should not be 

 in favour of any public nursery which had as its object the 

 cutting out of the nurserymen. The nurseryman to my mind 

 is an invaluable element in forestry. I would just as soon cut 

 out the timber merchant. As regards the price of plants I do 

 not know that I should be frightened by that prospect, because 

 I should never plant — except for very limited areas — with 

 anything but 2-year seedlings. I should also plant areas 

 as large as possible to reduce the cost of fencing material and 

 fences to which Mr Macdonald has alluded. There are fences 

 still standing which were put up twenty-five years ago with stobs 

 at 32 feet apart, and they are still serving perfectly well as 

 fences against certain kinds of stock, and I think that Mr 

 Macdonald's suggestion about piecework and economy in 

 fencing material is a very valuable one. I am not quite so 

 sure about piecework in planting. 



" There were a great many plantations of mixed hardwoods 

 and conifers devastated during the war, where shoots will come 

 away from the stools of the hardwoods. There, to fill blanks, 

 one would fill in with large-sized hardwoods, probably. Very 

 often many of these plantations could be resuscitated by another 

 method. Dr Borthwick had an interesting suggestion that this 

 might be done by means of poplar or willow cuttings. I am 



