Guard that Bush.

Of one thing we were convinced—if we had not been convinced already that this Rangitaiki, running in a practically straight course for the greater part of its length, is charged with immense power of damage to the lower lands near the Bay of Plenty unless the bush on the ranges above it is strictly protected. It is only the jungly bush that holds together the unreliable soil of the heights and the hill slants. Guard that forest of the ranges and the bush along the river and its tributaries for your lives, I would say to all who have to do with settlement along the Rangitaiki. The Galatea farms are at the mercy of the mountains that stand sentry on the east, two thousand feet and more above the plains. Not a tree, not a scrap of manuka or of fern should be cut or burned off either on the flanks of the ranges or along the tributary valleys.

I have seen no place in New Zealand where forest preservation is more obviously a national duty than this western side of the Urewera mountain land.