182 RECAPITULATION. 
Bxpenditure.—Here the balance-sheet speaks for itself. It deals only 
with figures which may be regarded as rough general guides in the case 
of a Kauri forest of average quality. In practice, the figures in each 
forest will be settled after a ‘‘ working-plan ’’’ has been drawn up and 
approved by the Minister, in consultation with his technical adviser. 
There may be forests—suburban forests, for instance—where on national 
grounds the Government may decide on a heavy expenditure of borrowed 
money. In France the general situation is that the accessible forests are 
paying the cost of working and improving the inaccessible forests, leav- 
ing on the general Forest Budget a surplus of about £1,000,000. On 
certain alpine forests, to stop torrents and erosion, there is an expendi- 
ture far beyond what the forest can ever return. 
The balance-sheet starts with the first working of the wild forest, and 
ends with the forest in full order as a cultivated forest, yielding cer- 
tainly a great deal more: in the case of Kauri perhaps eight times as 
much as the wild forest (p. 83). The immediate financial position 
hinges naturally on the present condition of the forest—viz., whether it 
is mostly old timber or whether there is a good supply of younger timber 
that will come forward rapidly with the thinning-out of the older timber. 
At the very worst, with no young timber in sight and little prospect of 
natural regeneration, the native forest can be fully interplanted with 
standards for about £2 per acre, as against £10 to £13 the cost of 
making an entirely new forest by means of a full timber plantation in 
the open. 
Natural Regeneration. 
Outside the ordinary method of thinning the forest and letting in 
light, ten artificial aids to natural regeneration are described. How far 
it may be economical or advisable to apply any of these artificial aids 
will depend on the circumstances of each forest, in practice on the 
aménagement (working-plan), and the character of the season during the 
year that each coupe (felling-area) is being cut over. The three essentials 
for natural regeneration are seed-bearing trees, light, and the soil in 
order. 
Interplanting. 
There are areas in New Zealand, as in all wild forests, where seed- 
bearing trees of good species are deficient or perhaps wanting altogether ; 
and in all the forests it is very important and of particular interest to 
bring in the introduced trees and leave them, when once established. to 
nature—to see how they comport themselves. Hence the urgent necessity 
of interplanting not only Kauri but also introduced trees in the Kaurt 
forests, and similarly Totara, in other northern forests. The trees I re- 
commend for interplanting are described, for the northern forests, in 
these pages; for New Zealand forests generally, in Part II. 
As compared with full planting in the open, costing £8 to £12 per 
acre, interplanting a limited number of standard trees may cost from 
£1 to £3 per acre. No pitting, cleaning, rabbit-fencing, stem-pruning, 
or thinning is necessary; and fire-protection costs less. There is re- 
quired only perhaps mulching (or a disc weed-stopper) and certainly one 
or two inspections to see that the standards are not dominated before they 
get their heads through the canopy. 
Planting in the bush has the further adyantage of providing shelter, 
and that modicum of shade which nearly all young forest-trees like, 
together with a soil that at its poorest cannot be so bad as some of the 
soils available for planting in the open. 
