6 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
The State Forests Act of 1874, and likewise the Land Act of 1877 (part 
V.), provide for the establishment of State forests, allowing Government 
full power to carry their objects into operation. 
The enactments of the forest law have not, however, hitherto been 
carried into execution, and it is still generally presumed that there is a 
superabundance of forest produce for the present and future requirements 
of the colony—such an opinion not being at all supported by any reliable 
data or technieal statement. Thus, the whole subject being restricted to 
the single observation of the presumed yield of the forests taken compara- 
tively with the amount of the present home consumption, other considera- 
tions of high importance bearing on the subject are overlooked, namely— 
1. That the demand for forest produce, annually supplied out of the 
publie estate, has already attained such proportions that a considerable State 
income should be actually derivable therefrom. 
2. That the New Zealand timber, ** sui generis" in the world, and generally 
superior in economie value and fineness to any timber indigenous or im- 
ported to Europe, commands an export trade there on a large scale, 
especially on account of the perfect adaptability of several of its species to 
various purposes of the European requirements, and that a considerable 
State income may also be realized through a special export duty, intended 
for the two-fold object of providing for the legitimate rights of the publie 
purse, and also of maintaining the price of timber for home consumption 
within moderate bounds. 
8. That the progress of the colony, as well as the extension of the timber 
exports, cannot fail, within a short period of years, to increase the demand 
for our forest produce to such an extent as to require the full capability, 
technically determined and regulated, of the New Zealand forests to supply the 
said increased demand. 
Should a new organization for the administration of the publie estate 
have the effect of restricting the disposal of the forest lands to the sale of 
the standing timber, in such proportion as the forest could supply annually 
and permanently, and should also the system of leasing the forests be 
amended or done away with, the material advantages expected to result from 
those measures may be premised as follows :— 
1. The well-regulated sales of the standing timber would afford a per- 
manent State income amounting* to much above the proceeds from the 
forest land under the present system of alienation and forest leasing. 
2. This restriction would enl the market val of the exist- 
ing freehold property, the owners, of forest lands especially, not having any 
longer to complain of a — so prejudicial to the value of their property 
as that g disposal of the public timber lands at nominal prices, 
