56 THE PUHIPUHI KAURI FOREST. 
soil as a fertile red loam over ironstone pontee es I eee ioe ie a 
varying from poor clay te ae gravel, In the planta | . 
li i the poorest. : 
wit les bey al Pearce? trees had a diameter of 18 ft. ; ger Hee a 
diameter of 10 ft. yielded 25,000 sup. ft. of sawn timber. Speaking 
from memorv. he would average the thickness of the Puhipuhi Kauri 
timber at 4ft. Gin. The longest log worked by Mr, F. Mander, M.P. 
(p. 57) was 90ft, The thickest tree he felled was 14 ft. in diameter 
across the stump. Trees under 2 ft. in diameter were not reckoned aus 
timber by the Government measurers and were tot worked in those 
prodigal days. When I was at Puhipuhi recently I saw Kaur) logs down 
to 10 in. diameter being cut in a little local mill. 141ft. diameter was 
the largest Kauri at Pulipubi known to Mr. Anderson, the forest official 
now at Puhipuhi. ; 
I have been to Puhipuhi and heard the story of its destruction by 
fire as told by different people, but more especially by Mr. Anderson, 
the forest official on the spot who has charge of the replanting-work 
now in hand. (See also Mr. H. P. Kavanagh’s evidence before the 
Forest Commission.) In 1887 about one-third of the area, containing 
some 300 million superficial feet, was burnt, This fire lasted for 
several weeks. (Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1892.) The forest was filled with 
‘‘oum-diggers ’’ whose interest it was to burn the forest in order to 
get at the “‘gum’’ in the ground. With the fatal /azssez-farre forest 
policy of those days, no adequate precautions could possibly be taken 
to stop the ‘‘ gum-diggers’’ burning the forest. Austrians would not 
have done this thing in their own country, where there is no timber 
nearly as valuable as Kauri: in New Zealand it did not matter! And 
so New. Zealand lost its most valuable forest, and the most precious forest 
it can have till. say, a century’s forestry has restored the forests to more 
than their old-time value. The destruction of the Puhipuhi Forest by 
fire would have been readily preventable; it looks as if the replanting 
of the burnt area, even with the comparatively inferior exotic timber- 
trees now being tried, will be slow and costly. 
A responsible local Government official who knew the forest inti- 
mately has informed me that the destruction of the Puhipuhi Forest could 
have been easily prevented, but a selfish combination of local interests 
wanted it destroyed, This is another way of saying that if the forestry 
of the country is in a condition of anarchy people will make what they 
can out of national property left derelict. 
Said the Hon. E. Mitchelson (Timber Commission Report, 1909, 
p. 585): A few years ago at Puhipuhi the Crown possessed one of the 
finest forests in New Zealand. It was a State forest specially protected. 
The bush was destroyed by fire and fully four-fifths of the timber abso- 
lutely lest. 
Losr VALve or rue Pusipvn Forest. 
Timbermen, bush-workers, and others are avreed that the Puhipuhi 
Forest before its destruction by fire Was, over ‘one-third of its aes at 
least, a continuous Kauri forest. Mr, Buckhurst saw it in 1874 and 
compares 1t with the once fine forest at Kaihu. The Puhipuhi Forest 
was then intact, untouched by fire. It was originally 17,000 acres 
bought from the Maoris, and intended to be kept as a forest reserve. 
But no measures were taken to protect it from fire. ar everi is stop 
the gum-diggers ’’ setting it on fire, ‘Then sawmillers roperly 
enough, were let in to work the burnt timber, but attheut-sipergiite 
