1'2 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 



necessary to take special steps at great expense, t(.) re-forest 

 tlie upper mountain slopes. In New Zealand, the Forestry 

 Department, with admirable foresight, has already secured a 

 number of climatic reserves on mountain summits. These 

 Avill have to be fenced off to secure the exclrrsion of sheep and 

 cattle, for such animals work irretrievable havoc in the forest 

 undergrowth, and to them must be attributed much (.)f the 

 appareirt decadence of the natiu-al forests. Wherever they 

 have secrrred admission to the dense bush, seedlings and young 

 trees are soon trodden under foot, broken down, and killed ; 

 light is let in, and the bush gradually decays and disappears. 



The Destki'ction op the Forest. 



As we liaA^e already seen, much of the tuss(.>ck country of 

 the South was at one time forest-clad. The evidence of 

 charred logs on or below the sirrface of the ground, proves that 

 Some of it, at any rate, was cleared by fire in recent times. 

 This may have been started spontaneously, or may have been 

 the work of pre-historic dwellers in the land. The Ma(.)ris in 

 the South Island have a tradition that when the Te Kapuwai 

 trilse spread over the country, Invercargill was submerged by 

 water, the forests of Canterbury and Otago were destroyed by 

 fire, and the Moa was exterminated. Canon Stack put this in 

 his list of uncertain ti-aditions ; but there is at least nothing 

 inlierently improbable m the destruction of these forests about 

 this time. In Auckland, the presence of the kauri gum in vast 

 areas noAV treeless, or occupied only by the manuka and 

 otlier heath plants, is pi-oof that at one time the kauri forests 

 were of nrucli greater extent than at present. The cause of 

 their disappearance is unknown. 



Whatever ma>- have been the causes in the past, affecting 

 the reduction or increase of forest areas, they faJl into insig- 

 nificance compared with the changes artificially wrought since 



