NATIVE FOREST AND PLANTATIONS OF INTRODUCED TREES. 153 
Redwood grows well all over New Zealand in moist warmish localities 
The finest grove of trees I have seen is near Whangarei. It is the tallest 
tree on the American Continent, and forms under certain circum- 
stances the densest “stands ’’ of timber. On the other hand, its natural 
regeneration, except from sprouts, is poor (Sudworth). Young trees can 
be raised early from cuttings in nurseries. In a fair soil in the Red- 
wood belt of northern California marketable coppice trees 16 in. 
diameter and 80 ft. high, with an average of 2°4in. of sapwood, are 
produced in thirty years. (‘‘ The Redwood,’’ Bul. 38.) 
For general utility the Tulip tree and two or three first-class conifers 
come very near Californian Redwood. 
3. Insignas-pine and Fucalypt Plantations.—These will cost £10 or 
£12 to form, or more if they are put on to the good soil, which Insignis- 
pine and Gums generally want for their very rapid growth. But the 
early maturity of the Insignis-pine enables it to escape a heavy interest 
charge—at twenty years only 2°2, against 5 at forty years. Insignis- 
pine will furnish case-timber in fifteen years; and match-boarding, 
rough timber, and impregnated sleepers in twenty-five years. For very 
sparsely-grown trees the maturity period would be even shorter, but the 
timber then would be knotty, coarse, and quite second-rate—sometimes 
not worth the cutting. 
Eucalypts should perhaps be a class by themselves. They do not 
mature as early as Insignis (or the untried Cuban-pine) and thus yield 
the samme money-percentage return, nor is their success so uniform; but 
Ironbark, Tallow-wood, Blackbutt, and a few others may yield more 
valuable timber. This, however, is only in quite the north of New Zea- 
ar By 
land. The cold-country valuable ‘f Gums ’’ will be discussed later. 
4. Ordinary Forest Plantatvons.—These, such as those that have been 
laid down in New Zealand, should furnish ordinary useful timber. 
Economically they occupy the fourth place. To produce timber of good 
quality they must be planted fairly close (6 ft. by 6 ft. the limit), and 
they will not mature under an average of forty years. Though the risk 
of planting exotics is reduced by the multiplicity of species, it still exists. 
The Government timber plantations and Selwyn Board plantations in 
Canterbury may barely pay expenses with costs (plus interest) of three 
or four millions. 
THe Fiverotp Risk AND FrvEroup Inrerest CHARGE witH ExoTIcs. 
Against the almost costless native cutivated forest there is some £13* 
for planting and maintenance, multiplied by 5 for interest, or £65 
per acre. To this has to be added five distinct risks—(1) Risk of acclima- 
tization, (2) risk of failure in early growth promise (as often with 
Eucalypts), (3) risk of disease, (4) risk in natural reproduction at the end 
of forty years, and (5) risk in quality of timber. Thus the Blue-gum of 
Tastmania was that unfortunate country’s best forest asset—a first-rate 
timber; but the Blue-gum in South Africa and southern Europe, Cali- 
fornia, and India is too often considered only useful for firewood. It 
has nowhere produced the same fine timber in foreign countries that it 
does in Tasmania, and the cold country of Victoria. | 
Larch in New Zealand does not produce the good timber of Larch in 
Europe: it is less durable and more knotty. Sometimes promising and 


* This is the actual figure to date. It may be reduceable to some £10 per acre as 
is now claimed, but on the other hand there is the constant rise in wages. 
