54 KAURI LAND. 
dian Forest Service. He has spent two years 
d exploring in the North Island. His opinion 
is that, with the exception of isolated valleys and patches, the great 
bulk of the Kauri area is stifi, poor clay whereon Kauri f° the ni 
productive crop. He, considers that the best apples et e Seringi 
much north of Auckland, for climatic reasons, and this is exactly my 
experience. ; ; 
I am acquainted with apples as produced in Tasmania, where I lived 
for nearlv a vear in an apple-orchard; with apples in South Africa, 
where I had an intimate acquaintance with Rhodes’s fruit-farms ; with 
‘apples on the highlands of India and in equatorial Africa, Phe Tas- 
manian apples are very good. The South African apples, In the latitude 
of Auckland. in the hands of skilled Californian fruitgrowing experts, 
and a dry Californian summer, are of fair quality. But apples on 
tropical highlands are only worth growing for local consumption. Thus, 
in the interior plateau country of south India, where no other apples 
were obtainable, they were sold for nearly their weight in silver! But 
in Tasmania it would be thought that such apples were not worth picking. 
In the wet Waipoua area, and most of the Kauri forests, it will be readily 
conceded that fruit, except for small local supphes, does not deserve 
serious consideration. Fruitgrowing on a commercial scale and a dryish 
climate are almost synonymous, taking the world through, I was shown 
eyen Quince bushes in the Marlborough Settlement that had not borne 
fruit for nine years! 
J. C. Firth, in an article on ‘‘ Forest Culture’’ read before the 
Auckland Institute, gives his experience that fern lands in the northern 
part of New Zealand, above the 37th parallel, are more suitable to the 
growth of conifers, the soil being too sour for trees, making great demand 
on the soils, (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1874.) That was exactly my experience 
in South Africa during the twenty-three years that I was planting trees 
there. We made it a practice to plant conifers on poor sandy land, 
Gums and leaf-shedding trees on stronger soils. 
Kauri Soil—kWauri is commonly said to grow only on poor soil. 
There is no better Kauri than that from Tairuwa (on the east coast, 
rather south of Auckland), where the soil is very poor and rocky, This 
has yielded the very finest soft-carving Kauri. That it does grow 
so well on poor soil is the economic strength of Kauri as a wealth- 
producer in New Zealand. It seems, however, more correct to say 
that Kauri grows well on both poor and rich eround. TI have dis- 
cussed this point with Ranger Maxwell, whose experience of the Kauri 
bush runs into sixty years. His opinion is that, generally speaking, 
the tallest trees grow on poor soil, while Kauri shows the most vigorous 
growth on good soil. He instatces a tree he logged with 90 ft. clean bole, 
and which was growing on poor soil. 
At the residence of the Hon, E. Mitchelson, at Renmera, Auckland, 
are Kauri trees growing on good soil and on clay, side by side. The 
trees on clay show the better growth—at seven years from seed, 14 ft. high, 
and visibly making 2 ft. yearly shoots. 
Nothing that has happened since has impugned the accuracy of 
Darwin’s dictum. . The Kauri remains still the most valuable permanent 
source of wealth in the North Island, What else is there that. over 
as £10 per ASR ping ates pipeclay land, can give a net 
one family per 75 r i Amd ae Eis ta settlement at the rate of 
¥ per (2 acres’ And this, too, with a rainfall so heavy that the 
little fertility in the soil is promptly leached ont as soon as the forest 
covert is taken off. 
portant position in the In 
in New Zealand, fishing an 
