LESSON OF THE WAR-MAPS. 189 
only the case of the Kauri forests, where the value of the timber is well 
known and where markets are assured, it is shown above that a half- 
million acres secured for the country now, by demarcation and redemp- 
tion would pay all possible charges on the war debt. 
The alienation of further good forests on poor or steep mountain land 
should be arrested without delay, and forest demarcation put in hand 
to finally separate the land best suited for forestry from that best suited 
for farming. To do the demarcation, and to work the forest estates as 
soon as they are formed, there should be a technical non-political Forest 
Department on the lines of the American Forest Service. 
My father left a park to me, but it is wild and barren. 
* * * * * 
Yet, say the neighbours when they call, this is not bad but good land, 
And bears in it the germ of all that grows within the woodland. 
—TENNYSON. 
DISCOVERY OF “ KAIRARU.’’ 
Mr. Percy Smith, of New Plymouth, late Surveyor-General, has given 
me the following account of his discovery of Kairaru :— 
‘‘T was conducting the triangulation north of Auckland in 1870-74, 
and on one occasion was in advance of my men, they carrying the instru- 
ments and myself using my long knife to cut a track up one of the south- 
east spurs of Tu-ta-moe Mountain, when I saw (out of the corner of 
my eye, as it were), in a slight depression, what I took to be a cliff! 
But as I advanced a few paces I saw that I could look round it, and then 
it dawned on me that it was a Kauri tree of enormous size. I think 
one of the men measured the tree with his arm, and, at any rate, we 
came to the conclusion that it was just a chain (66 ft.) round. Some 
years afterwards I got Henry Wilson, then Crown Lands Ranger from 
Whangarei district, to visit the tree and measure it. This he did, and 
found it to be just 66 ft. in circumference.’’ 


