THE BACK COUNTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 12

THE BACK COUNTRY

The problem of deteriorated lands is neither new nor confined to New Zealand. It has been before the public of the Dominion on and off for at least twenty years, and there are few countries of the world which have not more or less deteriorated lands included in their total area. Australia and North America have their "dust bowls" where winds blow away the dry top soil and expose infertile surfaces beneath. Other countries, including the United States and South Africa, have suffered badly from erosion. The deforestation of parts of Asia has extended the areas of deserts in some instances and caused disastrous floods in others. In most cases the cause has been the extension of grazing or cultivation- in times of high prices to lands which were fundamentally unsuitable for permanent pasturage or agriculture. This is particularly the trouble in the hinterland of Taranaki where deterioration is described as so serious as to demand the immediate investigation of the Government with a view to national action. This is the request the Stratford executive of the Farmers' Union has decided, according to a New Plymouth correspondent, as reported in "The Post" yesterday, to make to the Government. A member of the executive stated at the meeting that

in the last seven years over a million acres of land previously occupied had gone out of production; and this was continuing at the rate of 100,000 acres yearly. . . . Good farmers on adjoining land were being ruined and forced to abandon their farms by the spread of noxious weeds and excessive rates.

Though the problem is not limited to this part of New Zealand, the conditions there are typical of the futility of clearing land that is too broken for permanent occupation. Forty years ago practically the whole of this region was one vast forest, covering the headwaters of numerous streams and rivers. Of this forest between Stratford and Taumarunui, a hundred miles, mainly east andl west, and for an equal distance north and south, hardly a vestige remains. Except in the valley flats the land is too steep for cattle and the climate too wet for sheep. It is not amenable to ordinary top-dressing, .and once the original fertility from the bush has disappeared, the tendency to deteriorate and revert to second growth, fern, and weeds is difficult to check. To this normal process has been added in recent years the discouraging influence of higher costs of working due to the Government's policy. The effect of this factor has been noted in many quarters as tending to put second-class and thirdclass land out of production in other parts of the Dominion. Rates and taxes add to the overhead of this "marginal" land, and, coupled with higher costs and lower prices in recent years, have accelerated the process of abandonment. Yet much of the deteriorated land would probably be found beyond the remedy of relief from all these economic burdens and not worth working even' as an unencumbered gift. Some form of reafforestation would seem to be the only way out. At the same time there will be many other parts worthy of serious consideration by the authorities as still capable of useful production. Under \all the circumstances there is full justification for the appointment of a commission of scientific and practical experts empowered to examine in all its aspects a problem which concerns the future of large areas of the Dominion and of primary production in general, but is not beyond the range of human capacity to solve.