AFRICAN DROUGHTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18895, 18 December 1924, Page 16

AFRICAN DROUGHTS.

CONDITION OF THE LAND.

"A .writer in the Pastoral Review Heal- I irig vitlr the report of the South African Commission, after describing the original condition of the country says:— "Man came along' with his (locks ami herds, overstocked the country, provided ho additional sustenance, allowed his stock to cat off the pastures, applied his ravag- j ing axe to the Lush, and set tire regularly to the grass in the dry seasons, so lining the earth that when I tie rains came in due course there was nothing to hoid hack the Kvaters, and these'simply rushed straightWay down the lulls and over the, plains, tarrying soil, carving out sluits and Hongas, creating unprecedented floods, and although the vegetation would spring up, there was insufficient moisture in the soil to sustain life; hut before it would wilt hnc'i perish starving stock h,,l gnawed it to the roots, and even the marvellous retuperaiive character of the Karoo veld lias been unable to stand up to such treatment, and has died out. As the Vegetation died so did the rivers cease to run regularly. Watering places betarno scarcer, and btock had perforce to travel farther and farther afield for water, matters worse by trampling and loosening the veld, and so it is that these barts of the couptry arc becoming- uotbjnpbut bowling- deserta/i