Originally captured on 8mm black & white film, this reel from the James Tannock collection depicts Pinus Radiata (pine tree) propagation.
At a nursery behind Alhambra (Opoho) football ground, labourers work in efficient teams to prepare rows for sowing pine seeds.
Rows of seedlings are growing on a hillside. Labourers turn soil with shovels and spades. Two men work on opposite sides of a seedling row to loosen the soil with spades. In a second pass they uplift the pine seedlings and load them in to a hand-held/ fixed-leg barrow which they carry off the fields. The seedlings are bundled then have their roots dipped (‘puddling’) in liquid clay. They are then stored in shallow trenches with the roots covered in loose dirt.
Planting gangs work with pickaxes on a hillside (possibly Flagstaff area).
Men use axes and a hand saw to fell a large pine tree in the upper Botanic Garden.
The tree is de-limbed and many hands help load sections of the trunk on to the back of a truck. After the logs are secured with rope, the truck drives away.