45 



require to remain closed for a number of years in order to establish a re-growth, while 

 others should be cleared of a surplus of mature timber which they contain, either by- 

 felling in sections or irregularly over the whole area, according to local circumstances. 

 The distribution of foresters is also affected by the mode of working, and had better 

 remain in abeyance for a time. It would cause no real inconvenience to close the forests- 

 At present there is very little wood sold from the Crown forests, and no wood trade to 

 speak of ; the principal kinds of timber are not allowed to be cut, and from January, 

 1883, to May, 1888, the issue of licenses was entirely suspended without any serious 

 injury of private interests following. 



A difficulty met in connection with the reservation of forests arises from the per- 

 sistent way in which some land surveyors alienate forest contrarily to their instructions. 

 They may sometimes be incapable of deciding what lands to reserve, but more frequently 

 they are disposed to enhance the value of the farms which they lay out by including 

 forest. This tendency has resulted both here and at the Cape in a more than trifling 

 diminution of forests, and it does not seem easy to repress; but surveyors should be 

 made to realise that forest property does not differ essentially from any other, and that 

 its unlawful disposal is an offence that requires to be dealt with severely. A strict 

 enforcement of the instructions prohibiting the survey of forest lands could not be looked 

 upon as a hardship, for it would only serve to do away with the preference which appli- 

 cants for land may now give to those surveyors whose notions of forest are the most 

 lax. Still, on the whole, it is not advisable to place too much reliance on the capacity of 

 surveyors in this respect, and a preferable course would be to dispose of as little Crown 

 land as possible, pending the constitution of forest reserves. 



Most of the forests in the Division of Newcastle are situated on leased lands ; and to 

 establish Forest Reserves, it will be necessary to give to the lessees a year's notice that 

 it is intended to alter the boundaries of their leases. Where grass lands are included in- 

 the reserves, the grazing may be leased from year to year, whenever it is not required for 

 working the forest, and the revenue now derived from land leases could be maintained 

 from grazing leases ; at present the lands are used only for pasturage, so that the change 

 would simply be one of tenure. 



In Native locations, the principal forests could be thrown into reserves managed for 

 the benefit of the Native Trust, and the remainder classed as undemarkated forest. An 

 exception should be made in the case of some of the forests on Location No. 1, Upper 

 Umkomanzi, in which the principal Crown forests have been so badly cut off that a satis- 

 factory reserve cannot be formed without infringing on the location land. I should 

 recommend, as a way out of the difficulty, that an equitable exchange be arranged of 

 some of the Crown land adjoining the location for some of the location land. It could 

 be done without inconvenience to the Natives, who are not settled near the forests ; and 



