158 



Canadian Forestry Journal^ August, ipij. 



Over Exploited. 



Eastern Conservancy, Cape Pro- 

 yince. — The timber forests occur 

 chiefly on the Amatola and Perie 

 Ranges, but nowhere cover continu- 

 ous areas of any great extent. These 

 forests have been largely exploited 

 in the past, and few of them still 

 contain any quantity of virgin tim- 

 ber. 



Transkeian Territories. — The tmi- 

 ber forests here are, in general, 

 similar in distribution and composi- 

 tion to those of the Eastern Pro- 

 vince, b u t somewhat extensive 

 forests occur at intervals along the 

 coast. 



Some of the more accessible of the 

 Transkeian forests have been heavily 

 worked in the past, but many of 

 them, including most of the coast 

 forests and some fine forests of 

 nearly pure Yellow-wood in the 

 Northern part of the Territories, 

 have been too inaccessible to allow 

 of profitable utilisation. 



Forests of Natal. 



Natal. — The forests of Natal are 

 now of small extent, the greater pro- 

 portion of those which once existed 

 having passed oiit of Government 

 ownership or been included in Native 

 Locations, and much of the area once 

 occupied by them has been deforest- 

 ed. Generally speaking, they may 

 be grouped as mountain and coast 

 forests like the Transkeian Forests, 

 and are of more or less similar com- 

 position. A special feature of some 

 of the coast forests is the large pro- 

 portion of Waterwood, a compara- 

 tively light, easily worked wood. 



Some of the Crown forests have 

 been heavily worked in the past but 

 there are some well-stocked forests 

 of virgin timber, largely Yellow- 

 wood, still existent on the Reserves 

 in the southern districts of Natal. 

 . Transvaal. — The timber forests 

 occur at widely scattered intervals 

 on the mountain ranges along the 

 eastern edge of the plateau from the 

 Natal border northwards, and are of 

 small extent, with the exception of 



some comparatively large and con- 

 tinuous areas on the easterly slopes 

 of the Woodbush Mountains and, to 

 a less extent, on the outlying Zout- 

 pansberg Range, in the extreme 

 north. 



With the exception of a few thou- 

 sand acres of still virgin forest in 

 parts of these ranges, the forests 

 have all been heavily worked in the 

 past and little merchantable timber- 

 remains. 



The area of the timber forests- 

 situated on the Government Forests 

 Reserves forms by far the greater 

 proportion of the total, but their 

 combined area is only approximately 

 400,000 acres. The forests on private 

 property, commonages and Native- 

 Locations probably do not bring up 

 the total to more than roughly 

 450,000 acres. 



Regeneration and Growth. 



In many of the forests, particular- 

 ly in those of the Eastern Province, 

 natural regeneration is very defi- 

 cient, but in others, as in those of 

 Knysna and some of the Transkeian 

 forests, it is more abundant. In the 

 majority of the forests, when in vir- 

 gin state, the proportion of trees of 

 "pole" size was low and when ex- 

 ploitation of the forests took place in 

 the past, little or no heed was given 

 to the preservation of the young- 

 trees or to securing conditions fav- 

 ourable for natural reproduction. 

 Often over-mature and rotten trees 

 were the only trees left and even 

 since the Forest Department has 

 taken charge of the forests, it has 

 often been necessary to leave such 

 trees owing to their being unmer- 

 chantable, and to there being an 

 insufficient number of immature 

 trees to be left to preserve the for- 

 est canopy. Moreover, the young 

 growth in many of the forests was 

 continuously destroyed by Natives 

 for the sake of hut-wattles, and graz- 

 ing and fires have contributed to its 

 destruction. Almost all the species 

 of trees are of slow growth. 



For all these reasons, it will be 



