350 



THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



tion to say or do anything which would 

 prejudice the sale of timber, or any other 

 product, of the Australian States iu 

 South Africa ; but, as in duty bound, I 



pointed out to my fellow-Colonists that 

 1 was strongly advised by several not to 

 recommend the planting of the Tas- 

 manian Blue (rum for timber... 



Systematic Afforestation ^ 



(By G. H. Davies, 



IN a report of a meeting of the Lower 

 Tugela Division Association recently 

 held at Stanger, there was a discussion 

 on the subject of foresty, which dealt 

 more thoroughly with the question than 

 other Agricultural Associations have 

 done as yet. The necessity of preserving 

 the native forest we already possess was 

 not lost sight of in considering the need 

 for the general afforestation of the Col- 

 ony, and, doubtless, the speakers at the 

 meeting Avere aware that such wild bush 

 is worth, climatically, acre for acre, a 

 century's purchase of any new planta- 

 tions. 



Generally speaking, however, the 

 Lower Tugela Association laid much 

 stress upon the afforestation of Crown 

 Lands. Any attempt to do this on a 

 scale large enough to beneflt the Colony 

 climatically would have to meet a for- 

 midable objection : Should all classes 

 in Natal contribute equally to a work 

 which would benefit the land-owners 

 principally and most directly. In the first 

 place, the mere locking-up of Crown 

 Lands for permanent forest would en- 

 hance the value of every estate, and then 

 that value would be automatically raised, 

 as the new forests matured, by climatic 

 improvement and facilities for obtaining 

 timber. It seems, therefore, obvious that 

 a fair sclieme for afforestation should pro- 

 vide that the public purse should only be 

 called upon to subsidise afforestation, and 

 not to bear the whole cost. 



Should the fair instance of the finan- 

 cial burden be arranged, there yet re- 

 mains another objection to the confining 

 of an afforestation scheme to Crown 

 Lands. A glance at a map of the Colony 



Forest Eanger, Qudeni.) 



will show what this is — to those who do 

 ]iot suppose that land-owners can be left 

 to afforest their own estates, without any 

 inducement to do so but a low return on 

 the capital expended about twenty years 

 hence. A supply of poles and fuel, and 

 an ornamental flourish to an estate, can 

 be easily obtained by a few thin belts of 

 wattles or other rapid growers ; but af- 

 forestation demands solidly planted areas 

 of good breadth, with slow-growing 

 species that protect rather than exhaust 

 the springs, and, shading the ground for 

 sixty and more years, are then only re- 

 moved in their ripe maturity to make way 

 for others like them, ready to support thu 

 ever-green canopy. There is little show 

 in this to put in the auctioneer's picture 

 of a desirable property — short-lived wat- 

 tles, which are ever making the demands 

 of a new crop upon the water supply, will 

 look as well. However desirable real 

 forest may be, it will take a land-owner 

 half a century to produce a semblance of 

 it, and a great deal longer to equal, cli- 

 matically, real old bush with its carpet of 

 humus to absorb and store up the surface 

 water. • 



The real position, therefore, is just 

 this : The Colony cannot afford the cost, 

 out of its public funds, of a thorough 

 scheme of afforestation, and, if it could, 

 the afforestation of Crown Lands alone 

 would not meet the real requirements of 

 the case — the climatic improvement of 

 Natal as a whole, by the establishment of 

 a fair proportion of forest to open land 

 throughout the Colony. Further, the 

 land-owners, unassisted, cannot under- 

 take a work which, beyond all other, re- 

 quires ])ermaneney l)oth of effort and of 

 maintenance, and of which the direct re- 



