PARCHED BY DROUGHT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2398, 2 March 1915, Page 6

PARCHED BY DROUGHT

HAWEE'S BAY DISTRICT TRIALS OF THE SETTLERS A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS A. drought of nine months, one of tho sovorest over experienced by tho district has reduced the fertilo lands of Ilawlto's Bay, and tho country on the East Coast for many miles south of that province, to an almost barren, almost watorless waste, according to a rccent visitor. Thoso_ Hawke's Bay landH, for tho subdivision of which the Jnndlusß politician has so often clamourorl, uro commonly roported, to be among the most fertile in this fertile country, but tho rich hills and plains now scorched and parched by tho hot summer sun are, according to the traveller in question, almost desert. A landscape onco as fair' and smiling as a great nark—for the waste is not treeless—snows not a vestige of green pasture, and great stretches of country are trodden by not a single hoof. The shoop have gone, some to greener lands, and some to the slaughterhouse. Even a light wind will raise dust from the fields as it would from a badly-kept highway. A horseman riding ever the land where grass should reach over his horse's fetlock, will raise behind him a cloud of dust. Everything is dry. All vegetation is dead save the deeprooted trees. Even rivers and creeks in other years boisterous and full-chan-nelled, now are reduced to insignificant quiet streamlets, sometimes to mere trickles connecting strings of semistagnant pools. From whatever quarter the wind may blow it will draw with it the smoke haze from distant fires. Somewhere or other grass, fires burn, almost continuously. The more provident of the settlein have burnt firebreaks round their houses, and some have even ploughed breaks to protect their homesteads from .the creeping devastation which may come. Big stretches of fire-charred hill and plain aro to be seen at all too frequent intervals. This is scarcely matter for surprise, seeing that on almost any square yard of this gTeat countryside a dropped match will ignite the dried pasture, and the wind will carry' the flame. From day to day the amount of destruction by fire increases. Of course, country so absolutely devoid of nutritious pasture can- not now support the flocks and herds that roam over the generous herbage in good seasons. ■ All but a very small proportion of the sheep and cattle have gone. The few remaining cattle • and sheep are kept on the fringes of streams, or near to valleys where there is still a seepage of moisture. These animals look surprisingly'well,.but the numbers are small. The mortality has been heavy almost everywhere. One can bear stories of this , or that settler who has set out to drive a weakened flock of sheep to the railway, and has lost so many by tie way, and made such poor progress that he has given up the attempt. These things happen in the back country, where it is.no easy matter to move stock. Near to the railway settlers have saved themselves from greater loss by moving their stock west to the well-watered lands of. the other coast.

Close to the towns of Hastings and Napier there have been a. few lignt showers 'from time to time, but not nearly enough of them. . Here the ground is dry, and hard as rock, and, except in the tilled fields, thero is no growth of consequence. A tinge of green is in the grass, but that is all that can be said. Toe plantations of English trees' which are the chief beauty of a very beautiful district aro remarkabl.v healthy and green, and the. orchards with which the district is dotted look fairly healthy, but all other growth is stunted. Potatoes and pumpkins are practically the only field crops now nngathered. They have grown only indifferently, and of late some of these have been cut down by unseasonable frosts. The small 'farmer and the station-owner have all suffered alike. Even in these less severely stricken parts all hope of a late growth of pasture to carry stock over the winter has gone. Rain now would assuredly be the greatest boon, but it could not undo the .'damage done. But tite rain-does notoome. ■ Day after day the suu rises in a clear sky,- and

'8 heat does not abate as the summer advances. Occasionally a few clouds gather as if for a storm, but they disperse and melt without a droj> of tho precious moisture falling. Still, the barometer holds steady, at "Very dry." It is perhaps not too much to say that a heavy rain of twenty-four .hours or more would cause as much rejoicing in these rainless districts as a convincing naval or military victory for the Allies.