upon poor, stiff clay soil where, after the Kauri forests have 
disappeared, nothing else will thrive. Whether it is, the Kauri 
forests extract from the soil all the ingredients requisite for the 
growth of other plants , or that they really grow only upon a soil 
productive of nothing else : this much is a matter of fact , that those 
tracts in the vicinity of Auckland which formerly were covered 
with dense Kauri forests, and where large masses of Kauri gum 
are dug from the earth, present now nothing, hut waste, dreary, 
sunburnt heaths of notorious sterility, upon the white or yellowish 
clay-soil of which nothing but dwarfish Manuka shrubs (Lqjtosjwr- 
murn scopariumj, and scanty ferns (Pteris esculenta ) can grow. 
The colonists therefore say that Kauri forests indicate a poor soil 
and a rugged non-agricultural country. This ought to prove a 
lesson for the future; individuals should not be suffered to ravage 
those precious woods, and to turn the country into a desert to 
the detriment of whole generations to come. For the sake of a 
few serviceable trunks, sometimes whole forests are burnt down 
and desolated , and what formerly had been employed in the wars 
of cannibal tribes as a stratagem to burn out the enemy, is done 
now for the sake of money. The woods are ransacked and ravaged 
with “fire and sword.” During my stay at Auckland I was able 
to observe from my windows , during an entire fortnight , dense 
clouds of smoke whirling up, which arose from an enormous des- 
tructive conflagration of the woods nearest to the town. Alien 
the fire had subsided, a large, beautiful tract of forest lay there 
in ashes, the newspapers giving only this laconic notice: “No 
damage done to timberwood.” That may be; but there will come 
a time , when the question will be not only about the timber , but 
also about the forest! 
In order to overlook at a glance the principal complexes ot 
the Kauri forests from North to South, it is necessary to begin at 
the extreme North of the island, at the “land’s end ’, Mariwhonua 
of the Maoris. Some few scanty specimens at Cape Reinga, a 
short distance from Cape Maria Van Diemen, in that part ot the 
country where the traditions of the natives fix the entrance to 
