PREFACE. 
THE following articles were originally written for the Auckland “Weekly 
33 
Graphic,” and are therefore intended to be of a descriptive and popular nature. 
Yt have not attempted to trouble my readers with large masses of statistics or 
with technical terms and theories. I do not lay claim to any expert knowledge 
of Forestry, nor can I hope to add anything of serious importance to the large 
amount of valuable literature already produced on this: subject. But I am pro- 
foundly convinced that the process of wholesale and reckless deforestation to 
which this country is being subjected will inevitably produce momentous and 
disastrous consequenees, if we do not take warning in time from the teachings 
of Natural Science and the experience of older lands. And it happens that in 
New Zealand those results of Deforestation which are to my mind of the most 
dangerous character are largely obscured by considerations which are in- 
trinsically far less serious. This fact is illustrated in the records of the Timber 
Commission which lately toured these islands. Whatever the nature of its report 
may prove to be, it is quite certain that most of the members and the vast 
majority of the witnesses examined were very much less interested in erosion 
and denudation and the climatic results of Deforestation than in its effect upon 
the timber supply. In fact, the casual reader glancing over the daily reports 
might well be excused for imagining that the chief questions involved in Defores- 
tation are the market price of kauri and the consequences of importing Oregon 
pine. I do not deny the importance of these matters; and I have dealt at length 
with the timber supply in the following pages. But I have written these articles 
chiefly to draw public attention to those other aspects of the Deforestation problem 
which are usually ignored, not only by the general public, but also by those in 
authority over us; and my hope that something may be thus effected to stir 
public opinion on the subject has been strengthened by the wish expressed by 
some of the members of the Timber Commission that I should republish these 
“Graphic” articles in a more compact and durable form. 
Auckland University College, 
September, 1909. 
