136 EXOTIC TREES FOR NORTHERN FORESTS. 
GuMS FOR THE Sanpy PENINSULA OF THE EXTREME NortTH. 
For the sandy peninsula of the extreme north of New Zealand, though 
the choice Gums growing in the same latitude in eastern Australia should 
be well tried, the following from the sandy coast lands of Westralia may 
sive the best results. The climate between Cape Leeuwin and Albany 
resembles that of the extreme north of New Zealand. It is equable and 
wet, without the hot winds of eastern Australia. 
Tuarr (Hucalyptus gomphocephala) deserves perhaps first mention 
here. Among Eucalypts it is fairly fast-growing, Its timber is fairly 
durable in the ground (not, of course, like Jarrah), and very strong, 
See the very favourable report of a railwayman at p. 37 of ‘‘ West 
Australian Timber Tests’’ by Julius (Forest Department, Perth, 1917). 
So strong and tough is the timber that it is a favourite wood for 
railway-truck frames in Westralia, in spite of its excessive weight 
of 681b, pex cubic foot air dry (12 per cent. of moisture). This 
weight is 41b. per cubic foot more than Ironbark. Such a weight, though 
it detracts from the usefulness of a timber, gives the firewood a heating- 
power equal to many descriptions of coal. So valuable is the timber 
that in the days of rude Government methods and no Forest Department 
its exportation from Westralia was banned. 
The Tuart forests are small, nearly all private, and confined to a 
narrow coastal belt 150 miles long. Seed for New Zealand should be 
obtained from the extreme southern end of this belt, near Busselton. 
This yaluable tree flourishes on a limestone formation and on drift 
sand. In South Africa it has been planted with conspicuous success 
in drift sands containing tod much hme for the ordinary Mari- 
time-pine (Pinus pinaster). This is on the sands of the Cape Flats skirt- 
ing Cape Town in latitude 34°, In the extreme north of New Zealand, 
in the same latitude and climate, south of Cape Maria van Diemen, it 
should do equally well, provided there is enough lime in the soil—which 
probably there is, for most drift sands, in part at least, contain shell 
and marine deposits rich in lime. Tuart should flourish. and be per- 
haps the most valuable production of the soil, along the whole of the 
long narrow peninsula, forty miles long, stretching south to Rangaunu 
Bay. Indeed, on account of its particularly valuable timber, Tuart may 
be worth planting as far south as Waipoua, or even farther south along 
the coast sands past the Kaipara Inlet. 
I may mention that the Conservator of Forests in Murcia, Spain, 
took me in 1914 to see his sand-dune planting, and there among the 
best of his trees was Tuart growing in white drift sea-sand just as if 
does near Cape Town. Murcia is in latitude 38° and the warmest part 
of Europe—the only part where the common Date tree ripens fruit ou 
a commercial scale, 
If crude methods and backward forestry have lost to New Zealand 
the demarcatable part of the noble Forty-mile Bush, north of Masterton, 
the Tuart Gum may give New Zealand another “ Fortv-mile Bush” on 
these sandhill wastes of the extreme north! 
Tuart will withstand fairly strong sea-wind, but I think should be 
first tested on the eastern coast. In sand-fixation Tuart is complementary 
to Maritime-pine, flourishing in sands where, as mentioned. lime in the 
soil kills or stunts Maritime-pine (P. pinaster), | 
rt. Under cultivation Tuart grows well in South Africa in any ordinary 
soil, in some soils containing little or no lime, so that it probably tole- 
