Forests.

The portion of Marlborough north-west of the Wairau River, extending to the boundary of the Nelson Land District, and including the County of Sounds, in all about 280,000 acres, was originally covered with dense forest. In the valleys and on the lower hill-slopes, rimu, kahikatea, matai, totara, miro, and tawa were the principal forest-trees. The higher portion of the hills and steep spurs are clothed with the various species and variety of birch (beech), to which along the shores of the Sounds were added pukatea and kohekohe, the latter locally called cedar.

Since 1860 sawmills have been at work in various parts of the district. Thirty-two mills have been erected, and have worked for longer or shorter periods. Haw-lock, on the Pelorus Sound, is at present the head-quarters of the timber trade.

The hills along the shores of the Sound will, for many years, furnish birch sleepers. There are other timbers left in places, but nowhere sufficient to justify the erection of a mill, unless pukatea wood, hitherto neglected, could be utilised. It is a light, tough timber, well adapted for boat-building and for packing-cases. The quantity of pine timber remaining in the Kaituna and Onamalutu Valleys is small but there is a good supply of birch and other wood, suitable for fencing and fire-wood. On these valleys the Wairau Plain is mainly dependent for timber.

The Pelorus Valley, with its tributaries the Wakamarina, Rai, Ronga, and Opouri Valleys, still contain about 300,000,000 ft. of convertible timbers, exclusive of the birch, of which there is a large amount of the best quality on the hills and terraces. The Wairau, Blenheim, and other districts extending southwards most depend for the future on this source for all their building material.

In the neighbourhood of Kaikoura, along the base of Mount Fyffe, and in the Hapuku Valley, there is another small block of forest-land in which three small sawmills have been erected. The quantity of timber suitable for sawmill purposes in this block is very limited, but it will furnish the neighbouring country with firewood and fencing for many years.