Canyon, Forest, and Tussock Land.

Engines are changed at Taumarunui Station, and a powerful locomotive takes our train up into the forest country and the long winding pull to the Waimarino tableland, the western end of the great central plateau. We are in the land of heavy timber and large sawmills, and numerous clearings won by pioneer settlers from the heart of the bush. Here, covering the headwaters of the Wanganui, in a much-dissected region where a coating of pumice from the ancient volcanoes overlies the soil every-where, there are the largest tracts of totara and rimu (red-pine) timber in the Island. Much of this grand timber has been cut out, and grassy fields replace the dense rain forests.

It is needful that this bush-clearing should be carried on with a wise regard for the forest needs of the future and for the protection of the river-sources and river-navigation. Climatic and water-conservation reserves have been made in various places, and some fine areas of bush have rightly been preserved along our railway route from Taumarunui onward. This is the only part of the Main Trunk line on which the traveller gains some idea of the noble forest that once covered the interior of the Island, and it is essential from every point of view that no more within sight of the line should be destroyed.

(To be Continued)