NATURE -AND MAN

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12735, 16 December 1935, Page 3

NATURE -AND MAN

CONTROL OFI EROSION. TASK FOR NEW GOVERNMENT. (Edited by Leo. Fanning.) A vitally-iinportant national duty ■ of the new Parliament will be to give the strongest possible support to a policy for checking of ruinous erosion. Month after month, issues of “American Forests,” “Naturo Magazine” and other publications reveal disastrous erosion, due to human stupidity, folly, or selfishness in the Uniter States. “Across the American Continent we have written a record of land wastefulness never equalled in the history of the world,” declares one well-informed reviewer. “Soil erosion by rain and wind has destroyed fifty million acres of land that a little while ago was in productive cultivation. Another 50 million acres is in almost the same condition, stripped of fertile surface soil, ripped and scarred by gullies. And nearly 100 million acres more, still in. cultivation, has been so seriously impoverished that the production of crops on a profitable basis is virtually impossible. “The consequences attendant upon this impoverishment and destruction of formerly productive land cannot be measured solely in terms of the land itself. vSoil washed from hillside fields is clogging reservoirs and stream channels, menacing our irrigation systems, ' inflicting tremendous injury upon our fish and game resources. Rich bottom lands are being buried by non-productive sand and subsoil clay swept down from adjacent slopes. “Of even more importance are j the human values involved. Abac- ! doned acres mean abandoned homes and we are wearing out land at the alarming rate of more than 200,000 acres a year. Agricultural com mucities dependent upon the soil deteriorate as the productiveness of the soil disappears.

000 MILLION TREES FOR EROSION CONTROL.

It is reported that about 600 million trees and shrubs will be produced by nurseries of the Soil Conservation Service of the U.S'.A. and co-operating agencies for use on ero- ! J sion control demonstration projects \ | throughout the country during the coming year. A large share of the 000 million trees and shrubs will be used in the reafforestaiton and afforestation phases of erosion controlj work on farm and grazing lands. Under the soil conservation programme I areas too steep or otherwise unsuit-1 ed for practical cultivation are taken j out of crop production and planted in trees and shrubs to prevent erosion by wind and water. In many instances, shrubs and vines are used in the control of gullies. When planted on gully banks, they anchor the soil and prevent it from washing away. When used on lands subject to wind erosion, trees and shrubs servo a double purpose by anchoring the soil and by breaking the sweep of j wind. They also slow up runoff of ■ rain water. A million pounds of grass seed will be used to plant cover on certain lands retired from cultivation under the erosion control programme. Like trees, grass anchors tho soil and prevents it from being washed away by rain or blown away by wind. More progress lias been made in New South Wales than in New Zealand with anti-erosion measures, although much of the land in the Dominion is more susceptible to erosion than threatened areas of the Australian State. “THE MAGIC OF TREES.” “Trees—Their Value to a Town”— is the appropriate heading of a pamphlet issued by the Parks and Playgrounds Movement of New South Wales, described as a “combination of all bodies interested in securing more space for recreation and nature conservation.” Here are passages which nobody could dispute:— “A beautiful tree, or a buckground of them, gives not only shade and shelter, but beauty and distinction to the most unattractive , cottage. So much is this recognis- j ed in some countries, that when j land is subdivided for building, a covenant is sometimes inserted insisting that trees must be left, since prospective buyers would take it for granted that the value of all properties in the neighborhood j would fall immediately the trees j were cut.” , j “Australiaus who fought in the Somme country in France will remember that almost every farm there had its grove of trees, and the villages seen from a distance resembled woods. Yet of all homes tho farm is most easily mado beautiful with trees, since they may grow without fear from those public officials who in tho past have been the greatest enemies of the street or garden tree—the electric light and postal authorities.” “By tree-planting alone we could within a generation transform most of the ugliness of our towns and homes into real beauty; and all citizens may help towards this end by urging upon their local council, or the other authorities concerned, the covering of our bare suburbs and townships behind screens of shady foliage; by keeping or planting garden trees where they suitably can; and by resisting all unnecessary tree-cutting as a policy of backwardness and ignorance.” In that kind of cult of beauty New Zealand is ahead of New South Wales, but there is still immense .scope in the Dominion for further planting. RATS—EXPERT TREE-CLIMBERS At dusk recently I was standing by the white swans’ nest on the edge of a pond in the Wellington Botanic Gardens. Suddenly there was a quick move of something along the main stem of a tree-fern frond, about five feet .above the ground. “A bird,” I thought, and awaited further action, which soon came. The nimble gymnast. proved to be a rat, which had

! a mate among the Ldiage. IVell, if [ had read about tbe feats of these animals, as I saw them, 1 would hardly have believed the report, even if it came from a naturalist with a high reputation for truthfulness. Hie rats sprinted along the narrow stems, and jumped from one' to another in the dim light. They liad the sure footing of squirrels. This evidence oi the rodents’ agility brought to mind j the belief of a keen observer, if. GuLlirie-Smith, who has denounced the rat as the worst enemy of native birds. How easy it is for those climbing prowlers to rob nests! How difficult to check the vermin in places far from the ordinary haunts of j mankind I Of course, in such a place ' as the Wellington Gardens plenty of the pests could be trapped or poisoned.