NATIVE FOREST AND PLANTATIONS OF INTRODUCED TREES, 169 
continue to exist—provided, of course, it is protected against the artificial 
destructive forces of civilization, the axe and uncontrolled grazing and 
fires; and there is no difficulty in doing that so soon as the forest is 
organized and put under the ordinary forest regime. This has been 
proved by the third of a century’s experience in the treatment of this 
class of forest in South Africa: wide the quotation given above (p. 89) 
from the classic printed and circulated by the South African Government, 
Sim’s ** Forest Flora of Cape Colony.’’ 
Surveying and Roading.—To the cost of grassing has to be added the 
cost of surveying into lots. Thus the Tutamoe Forest, with compara- 
tively large lots of 500 acres each, cost about 3s. per acre-to survey. 
Roads are wanted in either case—roads costing up to an average 
of ls. to 2s. per acre per year in Europe for fully developed forests ; 
roads in New Zealand for land developed either for dairying or timber. 
But this has to be remetnbered: that the cream-cart has got to run almost 
the year through, while summer-grassed roads with brushwood in the 
ruts will answer most purposes in the forest. 
THE INTEREST CALCULATION, 
Then comes the interest calculation. When we take this at 4 per 
cent. for forty years for ordinary forest plantations, and multiply 
by the factor 4°8, we take this as low as it is possible to take it. In 
the natural forest all the interest calculation goes out. When you 
plant a tree in a plantation the interest charge runs on till that 
tree is cut, supposing that thinnings balance cost of maintenance, which 
they may not always be able to do. But in the natural forest there is 
no interest charge under normal conditions, since the timber-increment 
is being produced throughout the whole of the cultivated forest; and 
whether it be an even-aged forest in compartments, or an uneven-aged 
forest with working at intervals all over, when a tree is taken out its 
timber-increment is immediately supplied automatically by the sur- 
rounding trees, without spending a penny. 
Forest PLANTATIONS ELSEWHERE, 
It has been shown that in European forestry, planting is hmited most 
commonly to places where natural regeneration fails. Forests where arte 
ficial regeneration is now employed will become less as the price of labour 
rises. The ordinary visitor is often misled as to the amount of planting 
actually done. He sees numerous nurseries, with their files of buxom 
girls at work in them, and naturally runs away with the idea that those 
nurseries represent the general practice. The English prejudice against 
healthy, ight outdoor work for women and children enhances the cost of 
forest nursery-work in New Zealand. But the forestry loss here is less 
than the national loss, for the physique of these lady forest workers is 
magnificent, and their domestic and educational attainments not to be 
surpassed by town workers. Something near half the number of forest 
employees are women and children in some European States—Bavaria, 
for instance, (Vide Statistical Appendix, Part II.) 
In South Africa extensive plantations were a necessity. The area 
of natural forest was not above 300,000 acres all told, and much of this 
with a very low timber-growth figure; while the cost of labour and the 
‘value of land were scarcely half those of New Zealand. 
