112 BEECH FOREST. 
associated with them. This 
thy timber, such as Oak, hh TU 
having a valuable timber Its introduction in planted 
valuable timber remains to be introduced. caiman jae 
strips, as I have frequently pointed out, 1s one of the primary objects 
of the New Zealand forestry of the future. Beech in New Zealand 
generally occupies a soil too poor, or a climate too harsh, for the 
‘mixed *’ forest. 
The chief use for Beech in New Zealand should be for railway-sleepers, 
but it is said to take the creosote badly, and to season badly. 
The Beech forests will probably be demarcated into three classes— 
(1.) Mountain pastures over 2,000 ft. or 3,000 ft. altitude. 
(2.) Firewood and fencing-pole coppice, with ultimately planted 
standards. . 
(3.) Good Beech forest, to have planted strips of valuable self- 
spreading timbers. 
Ash is the only European timber which has not got its counterpart 
in New Zealand. Several species of Ash and Hickory remain to be put 
into New Zealand forests when New Zealand forestry comes by its own. 
Hickory and, in a more marked degree, Ash grow easily in New Zealand 
—in fact, better than in Europe; so here again New Zealand forestry can 
leave European forestry behind. In the United States the average value 
of Hickory sapwood is double that of Oregon heartwood ! 
For beautiful timbers there is little in Europe to compare with the 
common New Zealand Honeysuckle (Knightia excelsa), and nothing to 
equal the sheen and figure seen in waved and mottled samples of Totara 
and Kauri. The European truftle-yielding Oak has its counterpart in 
the New Zealand fungus-yielding Karaka. 
Here the comparison ends, and New Zealand can then throw into 
the scale small quantities of such useful secondary timbers as the Olives, 
Kowhai (Anglice ‘‘ Go I’’), ‘‘ Broad-leaf,’’ Mahogany (Dysozylon specta- 
bile), Pukatea (like South African Stinkwood), and several others in 
lesser degree. A forester’s impressions regarding these and other native 
trees of New Zealand will be found later. 
It is easy to imagine what may be the value of the New Zealand 
forest when it has had 150 years’ cultivation like European forests, 
and when such valuable specially quick-growing trees as Puriri have 
- become largely increased in proportion to other species. This has been 
the case with Oak as against Beech in Europe. 
With the peerless Kauri in the most northerly forests, and the noble 
trees of Totara in the next forests, there can be no question of the high 
economic value of the northern forests of the Dominion. Happily, 
though there is only comparatively a remnant of good Kauri forest left 
from the dark days of New Zealand’s history, Totara forests of great 
value and extent remain to be demarcated. Thus the ‘‘ balance-sheet,”’ 
prepared above for the Kauri forest, will be applicable, with but little 
reduction, to a large part of the forests in the northern half of the North 
Island. Nor will it be difficult to make the reduction required for 
forests of lesser value, but still valuable enough to be treated intensively. 
Two points remain to be noticed in the ‘‘ balance-sheet’’: (1) Age- 
classes, (2) milling. 
AGE-CLASSHS AND YEARLY CROPS. 
The forest will be fully stocked, at the first or at the second fellings, 
in from 20 to 40 years from now. When the first full timber crop 
comes to be taken out, from 60 to 100 years hence, the main pro- 
blem facing the foresters of those days will be that of the age-classes. 
