KAURI GROWTH. 11 
It is curious that these authoritative statements should have been 
disregarded for so long, especially that from the Indian forester, coming 
as it did from one used to the growth of quick-growing tropical 
trees. Popular beliefs are proverbially hard to kill, but one would have 
thought that a line of inquiry so gravely affecting the policy of the 
country would have been taken up by the scientific societies. 
Cheeseman’s Discovery.—The distinguished Curator of the Museum 
at Auckland, Mr. T, IF. Cheeseman, took the first step in scientific 
forestry in New Zealand when he showed (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1913) that 
the popular notion with regard to the slow growth of Kauri was wide 
of the truth. Kirk, indeed, twenty-five years previously, had quoted 
similar figures, but only in a general way and without understanding 
their significance. 
Mr. Cheeseman records his discovery in these words :— 
My own doubts as to the accuracy of the common belief date back as far 
as 1884, when I counted the rings of growth in a Kauri tree 4 ft. in diameter 
cut down at Whangarei. To my surprise I found that the tree had only 188 rings , 
or 7-8 per inch of radius. <A few years later | examined another tree at Coroman- 
del, with a diameter of 5ft. 6in,, which proved to have 280 rings, an average of 
8-5 per inch. Other trees were counted from time to time; but during the last 
two years I have been able to obtain quite a number of accurate measurements, 
amply sufficient, I think, to form the foundation of some general conclusions. 
x The examination of twenty-nine sections [of Kauri trunks] gives 9-7 
as the mean number of annual rings for each inch of radius; or, in other words, 
an average Kauri tree grows an inch in diameter every four and three-quarter years. 
Cheeseman’s seven smaller trees, of economic size, gave an average of 
82 rings per inch of radius. A brief review of Cheeseman’s valuable 
paper is given in Bibliography, Part II. 
The Lands Department Forestry Report for 1904-05 records that the 
late Mr. Matthews, Chief Forester, had found regrowth Kauri up to 
1 ft. in diameter which could not be older than twenty-five or thirty 
years. This was in Cascade Creek, Waitakerei Ranges, near Auckland 
City. The Kauri had come up thick after a forest fire. 
As one rides into the Waimamaku Village (a dairying area cut off 
from the Waipoua Forest) one sees a fence of split Kauri palings round 
the schoolhouse. The wood of the palings is weathered and shows the 
yearly growth-rings very clearly. On one paling are rings, } in. broad; 
on another, }in.; on a door-lintel I saw rings }in. broad. I counted 
the rings on a number of stumps at Waipoua and Puhipuhi, and these 
{excluding dominated heart, which was often present) averaged about 
eight rings per inch of radius in the economic part of the trunk—yiz., 
up to 14 it. or 2 ft. of radius. 
My general observations of the growth of Kauri, which will be pub- 
lished shortly, do not materially alter Mr. Cheeseman’s figures. (See 
also p. 158.) 
Kaurt Growru-rnines, Trounson Park. 
‘In 1916, on the way back from doing the Waipoua Forest demarea- 
tion, passing Trounson Park I noticed on the outside a number of sawn 
sections of stump and crown, where Kauri logs had been removed. [| 
immediately resolved to spend the day there and investigate the rings. 
They had been weathered and thus rendered clearer. As there were a 
large number of sections to count from, I confined my investigations to 
those with quite clear rings. 
Dominated Heart.—Most of the sections showed a small core of very 
Tine rings in the centre, some twenty-five or thirty to the inch, marking 
