shat our bush is being cut away in places 
where it ought to be preserved, on land 
that can never be of much use for any 
other purpose, and that the process of 
deforestation everywhere is being hurried 
on with reckless extravagance and haste. 
It is easy to find a large amount of evi- 
dence in support of this statement. In an 
article on our “Vanishing Forests,” con- 
tributed by Mr P. J. O'Regan a few 
months ago to the “New Zealand Times,” 
it is pointed out that in various parts of 
New Zealand “hill country is being open- 
ed for settlement in complete disregard 
of the grave consequences that must en- 
sue.” Whet those results must be in the 
way of erosion and denudation and floods, 
I have already tried to explain, and 
these facts are fully appreciated by Mr 
O'Regan. He adds that in many locali- 
ties “hill country has been and will be 
surveyed and thrown open to settlement 
that, as a matter of the highest public 
policy, should be left as it is.” When 
Mr. O’Regan tells us that especially in 
clearing bush and opening up land in Nel- 
son and Westland, “the course at present 
being followed is in the last degree sub- 
versive of the public interests,” he is not 
in any sense exaggerating these ‘evils. 
And his judgment is amply confirmed by 
official pronouncements on this question. 
THE CASE OF WESTLAND. 
I may quote from some remarks on the 
deforestation of Westland that appear in 
the report on State forests issued by the 
Lands Department for 1905-6. The writer 
points out that as a large part of the 
West Coast is very inaccessible—consist- 
ing of narrow valleys with steep, shingly 
hillsides—it is practically impossible to 
cut out the timber there at remunerative 
tates. “In these deep valleys and on the 
lands above 2000ft, in altitude, it would 
bea fatal mistake to allow timber to be 
Temoved. It is not the actual removal of 
mature trees which is to be feared, but the 
Wholesale destruction that inevitably fol- 
i In felling trees the tops and 
ee is, sie. #9 rot or burn, to re- 
apenern is er wragks are necessarily 
, and are made use of by cattle 
37 
posit is ee 7 Ee Raa 
time nothinp a . SE eee he she Q 
ae eft but barren hillsides, 
from which the rainwater pours off to 
swell Streams and rivers with disastrous 
pla in the lower valleys.” The report 
goes on to deal with the danger of floods, 
and their destruction of valuable soil, 
and atter dwelling upon the reckless ex- 
termination of silver pine, and 
yellow pine on land that is abso- 
lutely worthless for any other purpose, 
it comes to the conclusion that owing to 
the destruction of the bush along the 
river banks, *‘ irreparable damage is be- 
ing done,’ and that “the sources of 
rivers and streams” should be protected 
against the depredations of the timber 
trade. It happens that Westland, from 
its conformation and topographical pecu- 
liarities, is especially liable 40 injury 
through the removal of the indigenous 
bush; and if such precautiong are not 
taken in time, one may safely predict. 
that the extermination of its trees will 
convert the whole country into a barren 
and desolate waste, forbidding, unprodue- 
tive, and uninhabitable. But the danger 
is not confined to Westland alone; and 
in all parts of New Zealand we may find 
impressive indications of the injury 
already inflicted by the reckless ex- 
tirpation of our bush. I cannot close 
these remarks more appropriately than 
by a quotation from one of the valuable 
reports supplied by Mr. T. E. Donne to 
the Tourist Department whilst it was 
under his control. “The forests were, 
and are still, destroyed unmercifully with- 
out any thought of the future. Bush 
was burnt down on absolutely valueless 
land, which was thoroughly unfit for 
settlement. The soil was thus deprived 
of the only good vegetation it could pro- 
duce. Very often neither the cut bush 
nor the ground had any commercial value 
whilst the bush, if spared, would have 
preserved at least the eminently ateuae 
tive picture of the landscape.” Even if 
there were nothing else about our native 
