WarxER.—(n State Forestry. xxvii 
The Climatic and Financial Aspect of Forest Conservancy as applicable to 
New Zealand. By Captain Camppenn Warrer, F.R.G.S. 
[A Lecture delivered in connection with the New Zealand Institute at the Colonial Museum, 
19th March, 1877.) 
Tue subject of this paper is entitled ** The Climatic and Financial Aspect 
of Forest Conservancy as applicable to New Zealand." In the paper which 
I recentlyreadat Dunedin on the subject of Forestry,* and more particularly 
State Forestry in general, I referred very briefly to the two points on which 
I have the honour to address you to-night. They represent, however, the 
most important aspect in which the whole forest question may be viewed 
or approached, and may be said to embrace, directly or indirectly, the 
whole subject. Were it not for climatic considerations, which we believe 
may be injuriously affected by the lack of a systematic and persistent 
system of Forest Conservancy, to the detriment of the health and welfare 
of the whole community, Forestry might well be left to private enterprise 
and the spasmodic efforts of private individuals or lócal bodies, liable as 
they must always be to the influences and considerations of the moment, 
and the popular feeling not of the nation or general public, but of a com- 
paratively small section of it, representing local feeling and interests. 
Were it not for financial considerations, which must ever be more or less 
paramount in the conduct of our affairs, schemes for the conservation, 
creation, and improvement of forests would meet with much less opposition 
and be much more generally adopted than they are. My object in address- 
ing you to-night is, therefore, two-fold; and I shall endeavour to show— 
first, that the climatic influence of forests is a very important matter, which 
cannot be approached too early or with too much care and deliberatiou in 
the life of a nation or colony ; and second, that financial considerations 
may not only be made compatible with, but form a great inducement to, 
real Forest Conservancy, especially if it be commenced and sytematically 
adhered to on a broad but ever careful system before the forests have been 
seriously injured or encumbered with a mass of individual or communal 
rights and privileges ; and further, that such financial considerations are 
not antagonistic to the development of the timber trade and industry, or to 
the general welfare and prosperity of the people. 
The subject of the influence of forests on rainfall, climate, and water 
supply of a country, has of late years attracted much attention, and been 
* Ante. p. 187, 
