of foreign experiments to us, therefore, 
lies in the light they throw upon the 
possibility of doing anything to meet 
the danger threatened to the world at 
large by the steady diminution of: its 
stock of timber trees. A brief considera- 
tion of the limits of the question 
shows that there are only two practic- 
able ways in which the situation can 
be met: either by carefully husbanding 
our existing supply of timber or by 
replacing the trees that we are compelled 
to eut down. I therefore proceed to 
deal with | 
CONSERVATION AND REFORESTA- 
TION. 
Hitherto I have treated the problems 
incidental to Deforestation in perfectly 
general terms, and I have not attempted 
to suggest any direct application of fact 
or principle to our own country. At 
this point, however, it seems convenient 
to digress for the moment on a topic that 
bears a very direct relation to the needs 
and prospects of New Zealand and its 
people. In laying down general prin- 
ciples about Deforestation it will, of 
course, be necessary to make allowance 
for the peculiar character of our timber 
industry, and the circumstances that 
differentiate our position from that of 
all other countries as regards the nature 
of our indigenous trees. The special 
feature to which I am now referring 
is the exceedingly slow growth of our 
native timber. Mr. Kirk, in his “Forest 
Flora of New Zealand,” and Mr. W. 
Blair, in his ‘Building Materials of 
Otago,” have given good reasons for 
believing that the ages of our forest 
trees at maturity range from 100 to 
3000 years. The kauri has been cut at 
anything from 600 to 3600 years; the 
rimu takes 400 to 650 years to reach 
perfection, the kahikatea 370 to 600 
years, the matai 270 to 400 years; even 
the manuka does not develop fully till 
it is from 100 to 250 years old. No 
Serious objection has ever been urged 
against these estimates, and they answer 
once for ali the question as to whether 
it is profitable or advisable to attempt 
19 
to plant native trees. But while af- 
forestation with indigenous timber is 
thus out of the question, we may still 
ask, even thus late in the day, whether 
it is possible to do something here in 
the way of applying to our own case the 
results of the experience gained by other 
countries that, like ourselves, have drawn 
with reckless haste upon their splendid 
natural heritage of forest trees. 
THE MENACE OF FIRE. 
Considering the immense value of good 
timber, and the prospect of a rapid rise 
in its market price throughout the world, 
1t would naturally seem that it would 
be a wise course for the State to check 
the indiscriminate cutting out of the 
native bush, and to reserve a fair pro- 
portion of this indispensable necessary 
for the evil days to come. And here, 
so far as New Zealand is concerned, we 
are met at once with a difficulty. In 
the opinion of a great many people who 
have had much to do with timber, it is 
impracticable to protect standing bush 
against the ravages of fire. Thus the 
Hon. E. Mitchelson, giving evidence be- 
fore the Timber Commission in Auckland 
recently, gave it as his opinion that 
it would be quite impossible to preserve 
kauri bush unless it were surrounded 
by a very large area of mixed bush, be- 
cause of its inflammable nature 3; and 
Mr. H. P. Kavanagh, chief timber ex- 
pert for Auckland district, also told the 
Commission that it is impossible to save 
kauri bush, owing to its susceptibility to 
fire. Now, admitting the wide experi- 
ence of these gentlemen, I would like 
to point out that the same opinion has 
been often advanced in other countries 
as to the impossibility of saving stand- 
ing bush, and it has frequently been dis- 
proved by practical experiment. Let us 
take the case of 
FIRE-FIGHTING IN AMERICA. 
where the enormous extent of the forests 
and the roughness of the ground inside 
the timber belts would seem to render 
fire-saving an impossible task. Yet as 
the result of careful precautions and the 
