The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1909. NATIONAL FOLLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2650, 4 November 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4,1909. NATIONAL FOLLY.

iuost people give an occasional thought' to the wastefulness which i.s going mi in this country as the result of the destruction of our forests, but there arc not many who have even an approximate idea of the gravity of the situation. On this question Mr. J. P. Grossman, a well-known Auckland journalist, who was recently appointed Director of the School of Commerce in the Northern city, has penned a pamphlet that is full of striking information. We should be glad to know that its contents had been absorbed by our Parliamentary representatives for, in that case, there would be some hope of legislative action being taken to preserve the forests and bush of the Dominion. The case presented by Mr Grossman is one that must compel attention. In a preface he says:—

I am profoundly convinced that the process of wholesale and reckless deforestation to which this country is being subjected will inevitably produce momentous and disastrous consequences, if we do not take warning in time from the teachings of Natural Science and the experience of older lands.

Any attention which lias been given to the destruction of our bush in the past has been chiefly concerned with its effect upon the timber supply, and this lias been well exemplified in the Government Commission’s recent report on the subject. As Mr Grossman says: /‘The casual reader glancing over the daily reports might well be excused for imagining that the chief questions involved in Deforestation are the market price of kauri and the consequences of importing Oregon pine.” Yet a far more serious effect of deforestation is

erosion. To estimate the full significance of this term, we must consider briefly the part played by trees in all natural systems of drainage and water supply. In his text book on Forestry, Professor Schwappach says: “The water from heavy rains, checked in its descent by meeting first with the foliage of trees, is better retained on forest soil than on bare land. Under a close cover of trees, there collects a ‘humus’ soil formed from the decay of fallen leaves. Though this sponge-like soil-covering the rain water slowly filters, and its passage is further retarded by the stems and roots of the trees. In this way the erosive effects 1 of violent rains upon bare hillsides is obviated. This is often a very serious danger, not only because the good soil is washed away, but also on acount of lower-lying fertile lands being covered by boulders, gravel, and sand brought down in the flooded waters.”

It should now be clear what difference forests make to a country's river system and its soil. They store up water for gradual distribution; and they prevent the vegetable mould they form from being washed away. Consequently. it follows that when the bush is cut down, not only do streams tend to disappear with it, but the rain, when it comes, carries the fertile soil irom the hillsides down into the valleys, and at the same time, rushing unimpeded along the channels and courses that the stormwater has already excavated in the earth, causes sudden and disastrous floods. In this connection the experience of the United States is illuminating and the report recently presented to Congress by the National Conservation Commission is impressive. “One small neglected stream,” we are told, ft lia.s been found by actual measurement to wash enough soil from its hills to deposit silt equal to one and a-half tons per acre of its watershed in a year. The quantity of silt deposited every year by all the streams in the United States would cover a territory 'nine hundred miles square a foot deep. Our rivers have washed 753 million tons of the best soil of the United States from the upland farms and carried it into the. rivers, where it has formed bars, impeded navigation and finally lodged in the great harbors. The Government has already spent 553 millions of dollars for river and harbor improvements,” and this outlay has been rendered necessary almost entirely through the indirect effects of deforestation. The Commission estimates that soil erosion reduces farm production from 10 to 20 per cent.; and that the annual loss to the farms alone is 500 million dollars. The direct damage from floods has increased from 45 million dollars in 1900 to 238 million dollars in 1907-r-and all this enormous expenditure and loss is attributed by this responsible Commission of experts to the reckless slaughter of the forests. China is mentioned as/the best instance of a land that never cared for forestry. She builds houses now of little poles, uses for fuel saplings, shrubs, herbage. Her children literally comb the hillsides for bits of roots and shrubs for fuel and fodder. The land is bared to the bone. It is a land of floods. Villages are swept away, hard-tilled flelcls ruined. Starvation always stalks in China. Alternate floods and water famines follow the waste of forests.” Mr Grossman supplies'an. abundance of other evidence, but enough has been said to demonstrate conclusively how urgent it is in the interests of the agricultural apd pastoral industries that We ,should preserve our. bush. The other aspect of the question relates to the supply of timber, and the writer shows that unless something is done to replace the. destroyed timber wo shall be face to face with a shortage in another twenty years or so. Those who believe that

avo shall be able to fulfill our require-

ments from outside sources will bo very much mistaken, for other countries arc in much the same shape as ourselves in this matter.' Moreover, few people realise the extent to which we have become -dependent upon timber for the needs of civilised life. In America alone in 1907, 40,000,000,000 feet of timber' were cut for various purposes. It is not merely the builder who uses timber extensively, but for railway sleepers, telegraph poles, mining ties, paper pulp, lead pencils, and other manufactures immense quantities are used. And with the growth of population and settlement this demand must inevitably increase. Having proved the national folly of allowing the bush and forests to be recklessly destroyed, Mr Grossman proceeds to state the remedy. It can be briefly put. First Ave should take steps to ensure that the cutting of our forests should be carried, on in an intelligent and business like fashion, and secondly that Ave should immediately take steps to replace the cut timber Avitli fresh supplies under a well-organ-ised system of planting. At the present time something is being done in this direction by the State Forestry Department, but the scope or its operations will need to be greatly extended before its efforts Avill have any marked effect upon the huge task that confronts the nation. We should like to see Parliament take up this question in earnest, for every year of delay means a continuation of a system that stands for national Avaste of appalling magnitude.