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control of erosion, preserves inviolate many factors on which agricultural lands depend for their productivity." Is there any one section of the community which will not be benefited thereby ? Not one. Is there a single individual ? In the ultimate analysis there is not one. It is a simple objective —the maintenance of all non - agricultural or forestry lands in a state of maximum productivity. " Productivity" is employed, of course, in its widest sense to connote the fullest development of all uses arid values reviewed as typical of single-use forestry. Add to this the not inconsiderable social and cultural benefits which accrue to any community with a well-balanced agricultural, forestry, and industrial economy, and the objective is one which should command the support of the whole country. The Realities of Forestry. If the national problem is easily defined, its solution is no less an involved and difficult one. In its initial phase all forest (or non-agricultural) lands are not under public ownership or even under a public tenure which permits of adequate management by the State. The graph of State forest proclamations which follows shows that State forests have since the inception of the Service increased from 4,959,674 acres to 8,354,861 acres. With the aid of the Department of Lands and Survey, it will continue to increase. As rapidly as the administrative machinery allows, areas are demarcated, forest lands proclaimed as State forests, and farming lands as settlement

Fig. 1.—Progress of Reservation of Permanent and Provisional State Forests, 1920 to 1939.

areas, but there is, in addition, at least another 7,500,000 acres of forested or forest land requiring management. A great part of this area is under freehold or equivalent tenure. In this respect New Zealand experience parallels that of many of the older forest-practising countries of Europe, and it is significant that there, either because of timber shortages or of excessive erosion and flooding at some stage in their history, one and all have been compelled to exercise some measure of sovereignty over private forest lands before deterioration reaches the stage which is characterized first by tax-delinquency, and finally by complete abandonment of derelict and useless land. Fire-control. The social obligations inherent in all land use require some measure of immediate recognition if vital interests of the community are to be adequately safeguarded. The paramount obligation is avoidance and control of fire. Not merely the control of fire because of the direct loss arising oat of the destruction of merchantable trees and insurable property, but, because of the infinitely greater indirect national loss,

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