KAURI TIMBER. wa 
lington—a pathetic little closet, some 9 ft. square, representing all that 
there ts of official forestry in the capital of the Dominion !* This sample,. 
like figured Totara, is cut from a piece of burr wood, and, no doubt. 
exhibits much more figure than could be expected from selected branch- 
pieces; but, on the other hand. Kauri burrs are not common, while 
Totara burrs and excrescences often cover its stem in a remarkable 
manner. A similar sample in the Dominion Museum represents the 
totality of wood samples shown there.* 
KAURI VALUE NOT SHOWN IN THE PusLIc Museums. 
In Auckland I was shown samples of figured Kauri, especially in 
Mr. H. P. Kayanagh’s fine collection, resembling the superb figured 
Blackwood of Australia. It is unfortunate that in New Zealand the finest 
samples of the beautiful timbers of the country are scarcely shown im 
the public museums, whether in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch,* 
Dunedin, or elsewhere. Indeed, no museum except that at Auckland 
and latterly Christchurch has even a third-rate collection of New Zealand 
timbers, and the timber specimens there are the poorest part of two good 
museums. Mr. Kavanagh’s samples (and there are others like them in 
veneered furniture at Auckland) let in a flood of light on the really 
beautiful timbers of New Zealand. 
A visitor conversant with the forest wealth of New Zealand, its greatest 
source of natural wealth, goes away with the impression that these 
beautiful timbers have been sedulously kept out of sight. The museums 
seem to vie with one another in ignoring what is usually the first display 
(out of England) in public museums—the timbers and forest products 
of the country. Often the wood specimens in New Zealand museunis 
lie worm-eaten and neglected in some dusty basement. I could not help 
thinking of the story of the Boer children who for two hundred years 
played with pebbles looking like bits of heavy glass on the banks of the 
Vaal River! That is forestry in New Zealand for the last fifty years! 
In the Dominion Museum Mrs. Blair’s recent gift of a handsome 
cabinet, is a gem in a dreary waste of savage trophies, The beautiful 
woods of New Zealand are unique. Savages, sometimes better and some- 
times worse than the old Maori cannibals, still exist in countless millions 
in all the neglected parts of this globe. For those interested in Maori 
antiquities one can readily imagine the usefulness of a Maori museum, 
but what can be said of a National Museum that ignores all that is best 
and noblest in the unique vegetation of New Zealand, the forest—that 
forest which normally should occupy one-quarter of the area of the country 
and eventually relieve the country of the burden of the war debt! In 
the Dominion Museum one looks for a ‘‘ Forest Pavilion,’’ illustrating the 
timbers and wild life of the native forest, and elucidating popularly such 
national questions as the usefulness of the secondary timbers and the 
handsome furniture that can be made from them, prettier, stronger, and 
less costly than any of the imported furniture that the public now 
unwittingly buys, thinking it the best. The peerless character of Kauri 
among the world’s timbers is far from being generally known. 
PREPARATION OF TrmBER SPECIMENS. 
I may add a word of practical advice, as I have had a good deal to: 
do with the preparation and care of timber samples. 


* Since improved. 
