Timber.

Westland offers a good many advantages for the development of a large timber trade. The forest lands occupy more than two-thirds of its total area, and are easily accessible. The rivers are not more than four or five miles apart, so that in localities where there are no roads the timber can be floated down to the coast The timber consists of black, red, white, and silver pines; black, red, and white birches; miro, totara, rata, kawhaka, cedar, and manuka. The quality of the timber generally is excellent, and samples have been forwarded to the page 6 Melbourne Exhibition. Considerable quantities have been exported, but the expansion of the trade is much cramped by want of freight facilities, the quantity exported being, in a great measure, limited to the tonnage offered by vessels bringing in cargoes, such vessels carrying away the timber as return cargo.