ON THE CONSERVATION OF FORESTS IN NEW ZEALAND. 45 
deed, hopeless to expect healthy growth of trees or shrubs in the dark, 
dank, confined atmosphere of the jungly bush, or in its deep, wet soil 
of vegetable mould. I believe that the present forests are doomed, in 
great measure at least, to ultimate decay and disappearance; and I 
think further that the future and permanent timber-supplies of Otago 
and New Zealand must be looked for from forests yet to be artificially 
reared and cultivated ;—the site of which will be fresh lands to be 
suitably selected, and the constituents whereof will consist in great 
measure of introduced or acclimatized trees of a hardier kind. Never- 
theless nothing is yet being done by provincial or general governments 
to provide for the replacement of the valuable timber that is now ra- 
pidly being lost or sacrificed ! 
The present condition of the Harz forest, in Germany, represents 
what I believe will in course of time be very much that of the Otago 
forests. The present Harz forest may be said to be the result of 
systematic cultivation ; the most valuable trees are not the original or 
indigenous growth of the district, but have been inéroduced and accli- 
matize he same may be said of the present forests of Britain. All 
that Ta saw in Otago, and generally in New Zealand, led me to regard 
it as a grave error of omission that the provincial or general govern- 
ments had not, when the settlements were founded, established, in 
some form, a Board of Commissioners or Inspectors of Forests, with a 
staff of wood-bailiffs, and all other grades of officers proportionate to 
the requirements of the time and the progressive growth of the colony. 
They would have exhibited only a prudent foresight, only a paternal 
protection of one of the material sources of prosperity of a new colony, 
had they done so. I am strongly of opinion, further, that the institu- 
tion of some such Board cannot too soon form a subject of considera- 
tion by the proper authorities, to whom I would venture to commend 
as a model for guidance the admirable regulations of the Harz forest 
in Germany, with which I became personally acquainted in 1850, 
and to which I drew attention at that time.* Much and important 
work awaits a New Zealand Board of Forests. Its more immediate 
function will be, on the one hand, to improve and protect the existing 
forests, and on the other, to rear new ones of hardier growth, permanently 
roceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh for 1853, or 
gion vol. iv. p. 985 (1853). 
