CAROLINE BAY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13830, 16 February 1909, Page 6

CAROLINE BAY.

A BOTANIST'S ENCOMIUMS. Dr. Cockavno, assistant to Biologist in the botanical branch of the Department of Agriculture, passing through Tiinaru a few days ago on his way to Dunedin to carry out some portion of an investigation he is engaged upon, was struck with the appearance of Caroline Bay from the train, and determined to halt at Timaru on his return and make a closer inspection of it. This lie did yesterday. Arriving by the first express from the south, Dr Cockayne was shown round the shrubberies and flower beds and the sands by the caretaker, Mr Gibson, and in conversation with a " Herald " representative last night, Dr Cockayne praised highly the appearance and condition of Caroline Bay. He declar 3 ! that there is nothing of its kind to equal it in New Zealand. Everything is growing well, and among the plants that are thriving are some that he would not have exptVted to see growing at all' so near the sea. one of them an Alpine veronica. He recommended getting the seed of the Chatham Island forget-me-not, which was the glory of the f'hatliains till eaten down by sheep and liigs, a handsome large-leaved plant with a profusion of blue flower. In the Chathams it givw down to high water mark, and a.s it grows freely inland also, it should do well in Canterbury.

Dr Cockayne is iust now engaged mi all investigation of the sand dunes of Ai w Zealand, with a view to selecting from the accumulation ol European t xperi.'iice, the method of control best suited to different ■ localities where dunes are troublesome. He mentioned to our reporter some places in the North Island where tue sands are drifting mischievously over valuable lands in cultivation, and a means cil preventing; their encroachment is called for. In this connection 1 ' the prevention of the drift of sand at Caroline Hay was mentioned, and Dr Cockayne said that the slight drift there could be easily mastered. Oiu method he .recommended was the planting of the sand with the mesembryanthenium, the, larger where the sea cannot reach it, the smaller further out, as an occasional wetting with salt water would not destroy it. He had promised the caretaker also to send him some seeds of a seashore sedge, which will grow in sand and does 1101, tend to cause the drift to form hills, as marram grass is apt to do. ... Dr Cockayne repeatedly expressed his admiration for Caroline Bay, and he brought his camera to bear upon it to get an illustration for one of his official reports. It will be a pleasure t> the Beautifying Association, the Mayor and Borough Council, and "to the people of Timarti, to have this testimony to the value and interest of the Bay, from a gentleman who knows so thoroughly what he was speaking of, and one accustomed also, as a scientific man, to weighing his utterances.