174 FOREST ALIENATION. 
here is nearly 12,000 acres advertised for sale at 6s. 3d. per acre, an 
amount which is about one-third of what it would yield per acre per 
year as forest at no distant date. 
In the Auckland District, at pages 6 and 7 of the Guide, are long 
lists of good mountain forest offered for sale at about £1 per acre, in 
lots of from 500 acres to 1,500 acres. Much of this is scheduled as 
‘heavy mixed forest,’’ and goes up to altitudes of 2,700 ft. above sea- 
level. On pages 2, 3, and 5 is more good mixed forest on poor mountain 
land. Here also is some Kauri forest. Thus at page 2, second-class land 
on Great Barrier Island, small Kauri, Puriri, &c., 114 acres for £60! 
(Naturally it is the small Kauri on which the forester sets store.) Again, 
on page 2, Section 3, ‘‘ mixed forest comprising scattered dry Kauri (only 
sufficient for settlers’ requirements),’’ 178 acres for £135. Generally 
where there is dry Kauri there are Kauri seedlings, but of this naturally 
there is no mention. The next description of Kauri forest for sale is 
more explicit: page 5, Section 275, Whangarei County, ‘“‘ mixed forest— 
a few Rimu trees and Kauri rickers’’; 78 acres for £80: abandoned 
by a former settler, and now weighted with £25 valuation for grassing 
and fencing. 
Again, in the heart of the best Kauri country, within three miles of the 
Wairoa River, where the Kauri would possibly be restorable at a small 
price, 75 acres of third-class land for £30. 
Any one applicant may obtain 2,000 acres of such forest classed as 
second-class land, or 5,000 acres classed as third-class land, or any 
balance of such areas not already held by him. y 
This is the present position of forest alienation disclosed by the 
Crown Lands Guide, drawn up as it is from the point of view of indis- 
eriminate destruction of national wealth without forest demarcation. 
The indiscriminate alienation of forest land in New Zealand was 
always dangerous. It is now ruinous. It is admitted on every side 
that New Zealand now wants all the forest that is left to it. Yet the 
war which has brought about revolutionary changes in the forest policy 
of England and Australia has as yet induced only partial forestry 
reform in New Zealand. Said a respected citizen of Akaroa to 
me lately, ‘‘ My son has 800 acres of heavy-bush land in the Urewera 
country, for which he paid the regulation price of 25s. per acre. It is 
magnificent forest, and the destruction of it is a shocking sight, He 
would save it if he could, but under the terms of his purchase has no 
choice but to destroy it.’’ Said a witness to the Forest Commission of 
1913 (p. 16 of Report), “‘ Sale plans have passed through my hands 
covering thousands of acres of heavily-timbered land, and not an acre 
has been set aside as a reserve.’’ 
It is difficult to arrive at even an approximate estimate in money of 
what New Zealand is now losing yearly in the absence of the usual forest 
demarcation of other countries—of Victoria, of New South Wales, and of 
Westralia, for instance. 
At 30,000 acres yearly it would mean that every year that forest 
demarcation is postponed and the present indiscriminate forest aliena- 
tion continues there may be a loss to the country to be looked at in two 
Ways :— 
(1.) Somewhere near £1,500,000 to replace the yearly forest aliena- 
tion (if that were ever done) with plantations of exotic timbers— 
since 30,000 acres x £50 = £1,500,000. I take £50 per acre as the 
probable cost of future planting—viz., first cost and maintenance and 
interest to forty years, but it may be too low considering the constantly 
