I visited, when in New Zealand,
the great glaciers at Mount Cook, one of which was named nearly thirty years ago
after Sir Joseph Hooker. They are among the hugest ever raised in the world. They
are now easily accessible, as the gradually rising plains on which, coming from the
east, the majestic chains of the southern Alps are approached, extend in some places
actually to the foot of some of the glaciers. Nevertheless, these plains, and even
the lower ranges, unlike to the country on the western side of the Alps, are altogether
treeless, and even mostly bushless. The requisites, therefore, are trees for timber
and fuel in these parts of New Zealand, and they should be necessarily of kinds comparatively
quick in growth.
and
, which among Conifers I was the first to distribute on an extensive scale through
Australia in the fifties and sixties of this century, are mostly utilised also in
New Zealand, particularly the former for masses of woody growth, but of course more
for shelter and fuel than for timber; and they cannot be relied on in the coldest
regions where the many Canadian, Himalayan, and some of the Japanese trees, whether
coniferous or otherwise, would be a great boom, irrespective of British trees already
much grown in these Islands. Indeed, it must be remembered that New Zealand is about
as large as the United Kingdom, and that half a century hence — a period required
for the generality of trees to attain their full growth — a vast population will be
settled in the New Zealand Islands. Where the climate in the lowlands is so mild,
the question of wood supply becomes a grave one. From Australia we cannot offer much
for the vicinity of the Alpine region, because although the plains near the glaciers
rise only to 2500 feet as a maximum, the cold descending current of air from such
masses of ever icy mountains exposes the low country near them to abundant snowfalls
during the winter months. Among Eucalypts, the best we can offer are E. Gunnii, E.
coccifera, and E. urnigera; but they do not grow so quickly as many other congeners,
nor is their timber the best. Pines must come from the colder regions of the northern
hemisphere, and so must the best of other classes of trees. The greater the diversity
of the sorts, tentatively introduced, the better, because it will only be after actual
test in different geologic tracts and climatic regions, that the correct final choice
can be made, as in those for southern latitudes some species of the trees become diseased,
or do not thrive well, which prosper in N. Europe, N. Asia, and N. America.
Botanists will especially rejoice that the genial Professor Goodale brought across
two oceans, as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
a greeting to the Australian Association of the same name!
F. V. M., Melbourne.
