2 FRANCE AND THE KAURI FORESTS. 
The French Example.—The French discovered Kauri timber, but, 
sadly for the forests, it was not their flag that was destined to wave over 
them. It is safe to say that if Du Fresne’s countrymen had had the 
handling of the Kauri forests they would by now have been a national 
asset equal in value to anything the war can cost the Dominion. The 
proof of the pudding is in the eating! The French colony of Algeria is 1n 
exactly the same latitude as the cream of the Kauri forests—a country 
where the Insignis-pine grows as fast as and, I should say, somewhat 
more healthily than in New Zealand, and where many more specimens of 
high-speed Eucalypts display their somewhat deceptive charms to the tree- 
planter! The French take these trees for what they are worth—they 
have no illusions about them! They preserve the native forests. 
Algeria is far from having a good tree-growing climate hke northern 
New Zealand; the Algerian forests are not half the value of the Kauri 
forests, and there is not in all Algeria a timber-tree which has even 
one-third the value of a Kauri tree. Nevertheless the French have 
demarcated the forests, preserved all that was worth preserving, and 
are managing the demarcated forest now with a technically-trained 
- Forest Department as good as that in France—and there is no better! 
If France had inherited the Kauri Forests.—Ilf{ a pioneer Englishman 
had discovered valuable coal-mines and opened them up; if an un- 
skilled race had come afterwards and burnt the coal-mines, making clumsy 
attempts at working them, the feelings of the Englishman would match 
sentiments I have heard expressed by French foresters regarding the de- 
struction of the Kauri forests! This much is certain: the loss of the 
coalfields would have been a one-crop loss; the loss of the Kauri forests 
is a perpetual-crop loss. 
Count de Vasselot (p. 45, ‘‘ Waipoua Kauri Forest ’’) always hoped 
to visit the Kauri forests, but when he retired from the service his chateau 
in Normandy prevailed over foreign travel. 
I did my forest training in France. French is to me a second 
mother-tongue. I know French sentiments in forestry intimately, and 
have no hesitation in asserting that if the French had inherited the 
Kauri forests they would by now have been in possession of national 
Kauri forests easily able to meet the interest on any possible New 
Zealand war debt. The £3,500,000 that Australia may soon be send- 
ing away yearly to the Northern Hemisphere for imported softwood 
would be coming to New Zealand; and if only a million acres of good 
Kauri forest had been kept there would have been a great and per- 
manent Kauri industry, with some 13,350 families settled permanently 
on the land as forest workers, besides a large number employed in saw- 
ing and transport. That million* acres would be supporting a: popu- 
lation at the rate of one family per 374 acres, and that million acres 
would besides be paying some £5,000,000 net profit yearly to the Con- 
solidated Fund. The next generation would see that £5,000,000 risen 
to £10,000,000, and a few generations ahead there would be a certain 
prospect of a rise to some £20,000,000. Is there any other million 
acres in New Zealand that can show an equal result? Charles Darwin’s 
statement was correct. The figures in support of this calculation will 
be found at p. 95, ‘‘ Balance-sheet of a Normal Kauri Forest.”’ 
Foresters would have come with the first officials from France, and 
the present and prospective value of the Kauri forests would have become 



* Supposing they worked, as in Europe, half the year on small farms and half the 
year in the forest. 
