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Professor Thomas Kirk, F.L.S The Forestry Era of Professor Thomas Kirk, F.L.S. First Chief Conservator of State Forests, New Zealand NEW ZEALAND FOREST SERVICE INFORMATION SERIES No. 56 O.D.C. 902(931)+902.1 The Forestry Era of Professor Thornas Kirk, F.L.S. First Cl1ief Conservator of State Forests, New Zealancl By LANNA BROWN A L. Poole, Director-Genernl of Forest3 NE'vV ZEALAND FOREST SERVICE WELLINGTON 1968 Alexander Turnbull Library photo THOMAS KIRK, F.L.S. homas Kirk has a well earned and respected place in the history of New Zealand botanical discovery. He is best remembered for T his classic The Forest Flora of New Zealand (1889), an account of commercially valuable trees and shrubs. Kirk has an equally well earned but almost forgotten place in university education and forestry; this booklet reviews briefly his work for forestry. EARLY CAREER Born in Coventry, Warwickshire, in 1828, Kirk had no formal school­ ing, though he was well educated through his father's tuition and his own studies. Plants fascinated him and he gained a thorough grounding in botany from his parents, both prominent in nursery and landscaping work. He showed exceptional facility in natural science and a paper on ferns, published when he was 19, was the first of a succession spanning his adult years. He corresponded, and exchanged plants, with many noted botanists. When his father died Kirk, still only a young man, tried to support the family by taking over his father's nursery and landscaping commit­ ments. Long hours and exposure took such toll of his health that for the rest of his life he was plagued by chest weakness, possibly pulmonary tuberculosis. Compelled to take less exacting work, he joined a large timber concern as bookkeeper, eventually earning a partnership. On Christmas Day 1850 Kirk married Sarah Jane Mattocks, daughter of a Coventry warehouseman. In 1862 because of economic recession and his health problem he decided to fulfil a long-held ambition to emigrate. With his wife and four children he left England with a party of religious nonconformists who were to settle in North Auckland. After 96 miserable days at sea (Kirk was always subject to severe sea sickness) he reached Auckland, where his first employment seems to have been a usual one for new settlers who wanted cash in their pockets: breaking stones at Mount Eden. Kirk experienced at first hand the hardships and heartbreak of most pioneers. Through poverty and privation, through the deaths of four beloved children, he held to an unshakable faith in God's goodness, and pursued his botanical career, in addition to labours to support his family, with such integrity and dedication that when he died Sir Joseph Hooker wrote: ". except the late Baron von Mueller there was no other botanist in the Southern Hemisphere who could compare with him ...". 3 PUBLIC LIFE After adventures as timber merchant, surveyor, and pioneer farmer, Kirk entered the public life for which his character so well suited him. Public positions he held were: curator, secretary, and council member of the Auckland Institute and Museum; deputy registrar of births, deaths, and marriages; meteorological observer; professor of natural sciences at Wellington College (affiliated with the New Zealand Univer­ sity); deacon and secretary of the Wellington Baptist Church and president of the Baptist Union in 1892; member of the council of the New Zealand Institute*, later a governor; president of the Wellington Philosphical Society; lecturer in biology and geology, Lincoln Agricultural College; and Chief Conservator of State Forests. Kirk was prodigal of services to botany; a prolific writer on botanical matters, he corresponded with settlers, students, and botanists, for years penning over 1,000 letters annually. He contributed specimens of New Zealand plants to botanical collections in many parts of the world, and was elected a fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1871. Papers Kirk contributed papers to Nature, Journal of Botany (London), the Linnaean Society, Gardener's Chronicle, and to almost every volume of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute from Volume 1 (1868) until his death in 1898 (130 papers in 30 years). His forestry papers comprise "The Durability of New Zealand Timbers" (1875), reports pulished in the appendices of the Journal of the House of Representatives in 1886, The Forest Flora of New Zealand (1889), and part of his unfinished "Flora of New Zealand", published after his death as Students' Flora of New Zealand and Outlying Islands. Botanical Exploration To Kirk every walk was botanical exploration. His major excursions were to Great Barrier, Little Barrier, and Arid Islands; the north­ eastern coast of North Auckland, Thames goldfields, Waikato district, Rotorua, and Taupo; and to Stewart Island, Auckland and Campbell Islands, the Snares, and Antipodes Islands. He was the first European to climb Mt. Anglem on Stewart Island. KIRK AND FORESTRY First Forests Act Kirk was professor of natural sciences at Wellington College when the first New Zealand Forests Act (1874) was passed. Some of the credit for influencing the Premier, Julius Vogel, to bring down the Act must be given, as Vogel gave it, to Kirk, who had an unusual opportunity to get Vogel's ear. Kirk's modest cottage in Tinakori Road had no water laid on for a time and he carried his supplies from the Vogel residence directly opposite. '~Later renamed the Royal Society of New Zealand. 4 The day the Forest Act became law Kirk offered the Government his advice on forestry matters ". as no conservator fresh from Europe, however high his ability, could procure the knowledge until he has been resident here ... it is obvious that serious errors may be made by relying too exclusively on European experience". Kirk's proferred advice was accepted and as a result he introduced New Zealand's first conservator, Captain Inches Campbell Walker, to the colony's forest flora, drew up an itinerary for him, and accom­ panied him on part of his tour. (The unsuccessful attempt to form a forest department is recorded in Captain Inches Campbell Walker, New Zealand's First Conservator of Forests. Lanna Brown and A. D. McKinnon, New Zealand Forest Service Information Series No. 54; 1966.) After the departure of the first conservator in 1876, Kirk and those who like him had tried to promote measures for forest conservation saw forest destruction continue without restraint. The principles and provisions of the 1874 Act remained law, but two sections had been altered to nullify their effectiveness: that relating to moneys to be credited to the State Forests account had been rescinded; and the power of determining lands to constitute State Forests had been vested in the Governor under Part V, section 91, of the Land Act 1877. REVIVAL OF INTEREST IN FORESTRY In 1879, when the British Parliament was showing concern about forest destruction occurring in the colonies, a retired French forester living in New Zealand, A. Lecoy, M.A., LL.B., presented his views to the Wellington Philosophical Society, of which Kirk was a member. Lecoy, observed, diplomatically: "So far as the conservation of the forests is concerned, the matter has already been treated in the New Zealand Parliament with a remarkable display of talent and patriotism"; but one suspects artlessness, not adroitness, when he recommended that in addition to the provision of £10,000 for forest establishment the initial annual outlay for staff should be £45,000. However, he struck the right note to interest Government: "Con­ sidered solely from a financial point of view, the forest question in New Zealand will show to any competent person giving attention to it, that within a period of, say, ten or fifteen years hence, a permanent State revenue, to the amount of from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000 should be derivable from the State forests, and that meanwhile capital, to about the same amount, would come yearly from abroad, as money derived from timber exports ..." (How unreal Lecoy's estimate was is shown by the fact that 86 years later (1966) the value of timber exports, including logs, had not reached £4,000,000.) " ... under all circumstances the Colonial Treasurer will be entitled to look to the proper arrangement of the State forests for an important and hitherto untouched source of revenue." 5 The Wellington Philosophical Society, though it did not unanimously support Lecoy's figures, agreed that Government should take con­ servation measures, and Kirk suggested that large tracts of waste country should be planted. The Government arranged for Lecoy to present a paper to Parliament (AJHR H-3, 1880), but interest in forestry flagged; it was sustained through 1880 only by Lecoy's effort to get State financial backing to the establishment of a small timber trade with France, with himself as trade representative. As well as keeping the forestry issue before the public, Lecoy made one telling contribution: his insistence that forestry, comprised of conservation, revenue creation, and exportation, could be dealt with properly only by a special administration. Second Forests Act During the five years 1881-85 the need for forest conservation was kept persistently before the Upper and Lower Houses by Henry Cham­ berlain and A. J. Cadman respectively, and Thomas Bracken, poet­ politician, asked for Government action on the planting of treeless areas. In 1883 Cadman, member for Cambridge, produced figures showing the futility of the Tree Planting Act of 1871 (intended to stimulate tree planting in treeless areas). In the 12 years that the Act had been in force only 52 acres had been planted in Auckland, 124 acres in Hawke's Bay, none in Taranaki, Wellington, Marlborough, or Westland, 146 acres in Nelson, 2,933 acres in treeless Canterbury, .539 acres in Otago, and 3 acres in Southland.
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