A Halt Urgent.

Timber milling is overdone in many parts of New Zealand. In the King Country in particular even the ranges are being stripped of timber. Add to this the destruction of young trees that would make a new forest if the settler did not consider them “scrub” fit only for burning-off. New Zealand will be a sorry picture a few years hence if the present rate of chop and saw is not reduced as far as the native forest is concerned. More attention to planting and regeneration would absorb in useful national work the energy that is now being displayed in destruction.

The fact should be hammered home to the public consciousness that the Dominion now has only a percentage of 11.7 in its proportion of State forest to open lands. (That was the last estimate; it has probably been further reduced.)