1918.] The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. 209 
150 years old, and it has yet to be proved that timber taken from young trees 
grown in New Zealand will yield really good timber like that now received 
from Canada. It should further be remembered that exotic trees are, as a 
rule, more exposed to disease than indigenous trees, and it is impossible 
to say what diseases the former may develop in the course of time. 
Taking all these points into consideration, the author considers it 
injudicious to neglect the natural forests. In his opinion a considerable 
area of the latter, stocked with the better kinds of trees, should be declared 
permanent State reserves and managed for the sustained production of 
the best description of timber. In many cases this measure can be com¬ 
bined with the preservation of climatic and scenic reserves. The permanent 
reserves should be taken under proper control, and managed in such a 
manner that the more valuable species regenerate themselves naturally, 
with such artificial help as may be required in the beginning. This is the 
method followed in the majority of the continental forests of Europe. 
The selection of these reserves should be made at the earliest possible 
date, with due consideration of the areas which are likely to be required for 
settlement as the population increases. If this is carried through on a 
sufficient scale it will not be necessary to build up artificial plantations 
extending over an area of 700,000 acres- -a much smaller area will suffice ; 
and this would be stocked chiefly with fast-growing species for box-wood, 
paper-pulp, &c., as well as with eucalypts, which must, of course, be 
introduced by planting. 
It is a somewhat melancholy fact that, apart from a few remnants, 
the kauri forests have been destroyed. That tree yields one of the finest 
coniferous timbers in the world, and even now the exports of kauri-gum 
have a value of half a million pounds sterling a year. Surely something 
might be done to restore that tree beyond the reservation of a few acres 
for sentimental reasons. 
The proposals of the Commissioners on the organization of the Depart¬ 
ment of Forestry are open to serious criticism. They propose that the 
control of the Forestry Branch of the Lands Department shall be placed 
in the hands of an executive officer of approved administrative and financial 
ability, to be associated with an Advisory Board of experts in forestry 
and matters appertaining thereto. This is putting the cart before the horse ; 
the arrangement should be the reverse. If justice is to be done to the work 
the executive head of the branch must be a high-class forestry expert, to 
be associated with an Advisory Board of, say, two officers of approved 
administrative ability. The Board should be called together at stated 
intervals so as to bring the action of the executive officer into harmony 
with the general policy of the Lands Department. The systematic treat¬ 
ment of the natural forests and plantations will not be possible unless the 
executive head of the Department is an expert forester, and there should 
be no difficulty in securing such an officer. Then a staff of trained forest 
officers can gradually be secured by local training, or by deputing, say, 
two intelligent young New-Zealanders from time to time to Europe to 
study scientific forestry. The Union of South Africa has for some time past 
recruited their superior forest staff from Rhodes Scholars who have been 
taking up forestry at Oxford, and the same plan may possibly commend 
itself to the Government of New Zealand. 
The suggestions made by the Commissioners as regards the thinning of 
the plantations should not be entertained for a moment. It does not require 
a genius to plant trees nor to cut down a wood ; the success of forestry 
14—Science. 
