188 LESSON OF THE WAR-MAPS. 
for the mistakes of the past. Forest alienation without demarcation 
may be costing New Zealand now a yearly loss of from £1,000,000 to 
£2°000,000: the first figure from the point of view of good or restorable 
forest lost, the second figure from the point of view of cost of replanting. 
It is logical to add the two together and say that forest alienation without 
demarcation may be costing the country £3,000,000 yearly! These 
losses will come into effect at different dates according to the class of 
forest lost—in some noble virgin forests, to-day ; in some, with the matur- 
ing of the first thinned-out forest, in from twenty to thirty years; in 
some, where there is replanting of quick-growing exotics, in about forty 
years; and in some at various periods up to 100 or 120 years, as the 
native forest matures when cultivated by foresters. 
Tur LESSON OF THE WAR-MAPS. 
A glance at any of the large-scale war-maps of central Hurope reveals 
at once how New Zealand, in forest policy, instead of being amongst 
the advanced countries, has got among the backward nations! The 
Rhine Valley, with the great Essen works, dye-works, and chemical works 
(enabling Germany to feed itself), together with its long string of great 
cities, has often been quoted as the heart of industrial well-organized 
Europe. All this was pointed out to me once more as I journeyed 
through the country shortly before the outbreak of war. It was to the 
Rhine Valley that I was sent, as a boy, by the Indian Government to 
learn forestry. The Rhine Valley embraces many types of soil, from the 
fertile alluvial ‘‘ loess,’’ equal to the best in New Zealand, to poor moun- 
tain lands similar to New Zealand mountain lands in nearly the same 
latitude and climate. The population of the Rhine Valley is large: 
about 50 acres of State forest with a small home farm supports a family. 
Living is cheaper (out of the towns) than in any part of the civilized 
world known to me. About one-third of the whole area is occupied by 
highly cultivated forests. That proportion is the result of centuries of 
trial. It is the proportion of forest that gets most out of the land and 
enables the land to carry the maximum population. Whether in auto- 
cratic Germany or republican France, the result is the same. When the 
Germans took the fine forests of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 the forest 
“ working-plans ’’ were continued with little change. They were part 
of the same story of maximum soil-production. 
Two extracts from a large-scale war-map, a square taken from the 
country on each side of the Rhine—one from France and one from Ger- 
many—face this page. 
It is noteworthy that the Rhine Valley has a carefully elaborated 
system of silviculture for its forests and strikingly economical living- 
costs, in its more remote forest valleys; while New Zealand has no silvi- 
culture and dear living. Though not completely cause and effect, the 
parallelism is worth noting. | 
NationaL Forests ror New ZERananp. 
A huge war debt faces the country. This must necessarily termi- 
nate the prodigal past. Valuable forest can no longer be destroyed for 
poor or uncertain grazing. No more millions can be sunk on doubtful 
plantations or amateur forestry. If a European State—Prussia—not 
much larger than New Zealand and less fertile can make £4,500,000 
net yearly out of its State forests under skilled management (p. 186), 
New Zealand with every advantage on its side can do more. To consider 
