TWO PERILS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22632, 25 July 1935, Page 10

TWO PERILS

SAND DRIFT AND EROSION NEW SOUTH WALES PROBLEMS (From Orjß Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 18. New South Wales is between the sand devil and the deep blue sea. In the dry west, out on the South Australian border, the wind-driven sand is steadily advancing. It buries fences, homesteads and bushes, where there are any, in its path. Nothing yet devised can stop its inarch. In the wetter east millions of tons of soil are being washed away and carried into the sea. When the white man first entered arid Australia there were areas of sandhills, some fixed and covered with scanty vegetatioii and others still bare and moving. Mail disturbed the balance of Nature with little thought to the consequences. In good years he stocked the country near the sandhills. When the bad seasons came the stock ate all the edible vegetation right to the roots. Then came the rabbits, which ringbarked the, larger bushes and trees. The sand began to move and it kept on moving. Thous-. ands of square miles have been covered, and thousands more are threatened. It has been suggested that if all the stock were withdrawn from the belt which is immediately threatened the vegetation might have a chance to cover the surface. This might hold back the sand and save the country farther in. This optimism, however, overlooks the rabbit. You cannot withdraw the rabbits and they will go on opening the way for the advance of the sand. In the United States the dust and sand storms originating in the dry country have buried the wheat fields of Kansas. Will the same thing happen in Australia?

Erosion, though difficult euough, is perhaps not such a fearsome problem. A terrific amount of damage has been done, but it is now realised that erosion can, and must, be checked.