PARCHED BY DROUGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 227, 4 March 1915, Page 2

PARCHED BY DROUGHT.

HAWKE'S BAY DISTRICT. A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS. A drought of nine months, one of the severest ever experienced by the dis- j trict, oias reduced the fertile lands of Hawke's Bay and the country on the East Coast for many miles south of that province, to an almost barren, almost waterless waste, according to a reecnt visitor. These Hawke's Bay lands, for the sub-division of which ilia landless politician has often clamored, are commonly reported to be among the most fertile in this fertile country, but the rich hills and plains now score Viand parched by the hot summer sun are, according to the traveller in question, almost desert. A landscape once as fair and smiling as a great park---for the waste is not treeless—shows not a vestige of green pasture, and great stretches of country are trodden by not a single hoof. The sheep 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 over the land where grass should reacji over his horse's fetlock, will raise behind him a cloud of dust. Everything is dry. All vegetation is dead save the deep-rooted tree. Even rivers and creeks in other years boisterous and full-channelled, now are reduced to insignificant quiet streamlets, sometimes to mere trickles connecting strings of semi-stagnant 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 settlers have burnt fire-breaks round their houses, and some have even ploughed breaks to protect their homesteads from the creeping devastation which may come. Big stretches of fire-char-red hill and plain are to be seen at all too frequent intervals. This is scarcely matter for surprise, seeing that on almost any square yard of this great countryside a dropped match will ignite the dried pasture, and the wind wi'-l carry the flame. From day to day t'w amount of destruction by fire increase;. l 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 or' the frinses of streams, o near to moisture. These animals look surprisingly well, but the numbers are small. The mortality has been heavy almost everywhere. One can hear stories of: this or that settler who lias set out to' drive a weakened flock of sheep to the railway, and has lost so many by the M'ay, and made such slow progress that he has given up the attempt. These! things happen in the back country,' where- it is no easy matter to move j stock. Near to the railway settlers have saved themselves from greater loss 1 by moving their eto± w«st to the well-' watered lands of the other coast. ! Close to the towns of Hastings and: Napiei there have been a few light showers from time to time, but not nearly enough of them. Here the ground is dry, and hard as a rock, and, °xcept in the tilled fields, there is no growth of consequence. A tinge of grei n is in the grass, but that is all i that can be said. The plintations if English trees which are the chief beautv of a very beautiful district niv remarkably healthy and green, and the oreluir.l- uiUt wnich the district ; ? dotted lnok fairly healthy but ail ot.h'-r growth is stunted. Potatoes and pumpkins arc practically the only field crops now ungathered. Thev have grown only in.lilTtru. 4 'y. and of late ?mr.e of these have been cut down by unseasonably 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 bo the greatest boon, but it could not undo the damage done. But the rain does not come. Day after day the sun rises in a clear sky, and the 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 drop of the 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.—Dominion.