GARDEN OF EDEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 134, 3 December 1941, Page 5

GARDEN OF EDEN

RUINED BY EROSION

A contributor to "Forest and Bird" gives a forcible* reminder that "God's Own Country" (the term which Richjard Seddon often applied to New Zealand) may suffer the same fate as the [Garden of Eden unless the people strive strenuously to safeguard their soil from the demon of erosion. The writer quotes some very startling statements of Dr. W. C. Lowdermilk, assistant chief of the United States Soil Conservation Service, who had been ! investigating the cause of the disj appearance of past civilisations in Libya, Egypt, and Iran. "Dr. Lowdermilk found in the dry canals of the Garden of Eden (the 1 Tigris-Euphrates country now called Irak) the silent record of man's failure to adapt himself," the reviewer states. I "Man had not always failed to adapt. Man had indeed created in this level land of the two great rivers a veritable | Garden of Eden, a marvel of irrigation; but the time came when the life-giv-ting water flowed no longer over the level lands, because the irrigation canals were blocked. As in scores oi New Zealand rivers, the force of water jin the hills carried down silt which, i when the silt reached the plains, the water no longer had the force to move further. Water will always pile up t eroded matter in its own level channels if, in its upland courses, erosion has [been allowed to begin. The remedy lies in preventing the upland erosion, not in removing the lowland silt from the river-beds and canals. The key to the prevention of upland erosion is to protect the vegetable covering from the tree-feller, the plough, and browsing and grazing animals."