OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1943, Page 4

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

SOIL EROSION (To the Editor) Sir, —The recent wet winter and spring should serve us as a timely reminder of the danger of neglecting soil erosion, which has become universal throughout the Dominion, and is rapidly extending its grip. As a hill country farmer, I have noticed with alarm the rapid increase during the last few years in the extent of erosion in every stream and runlet on my property. Big slips are occurring more frequently, and stream bed erosion is tearing at the bases of the gullies at an ever increasing rate. The eroded material is being carried along and deposited lower down, burying fences, blocking the normal channels, and covering good soil under feet of shingle, which is gradually creeping further and further down, and is even now threatening my best flats with destruction. Nor is my property an isolated example. Everywhere one goes, the same destructive forces can bo seen at work.

When the pioneers, in their zeal to create new homes in this country, destroyed the native bush on our high country, little did they realise that they were laying our hills and valleys wide open to the ravages of wind and water —forces which, if left unchecved, will in time tear the soil from the hills to the naked rock, choke the valleys with billions of tons of debris, and cover our fertile plains under feet of useless rubble and shingle. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that these things cannot happen here. They can and are happening under our very eyes. Expensive river works, stop-banking and river control jobs can only be regarded as palliatives, and will do nothing to prevent erosion, which will continue to progress relentlessly and with utter ruthlessness, unless we attack the evil at its source by a vigorous national policy of soil conservation, embracing reafforestation, improved farming methods, etc., as advised by experts. I would recommend everyone, especially farmers, to study carefully the excellent series of articles in current issues of the “Journal of Agriculture,” written on the subject of soil erosion by that eminent Chinese scientist. Dr Lai Yung-li, wherein he describes step by step the social aspects in relation to, and the fundamental causes of, soil erosion. Briefly, these latter can be ascribed to the removal of the natural forest covering, and subsequent deterioration in soil fertility and texture, both of which conditions lead to an excessively rapid run-off, causing erosion on the high country, and extensive flooding and deposition of eroded material on the low country. Finally, it is to be earnestly hoped that public ignorance and official apathy will not allow this insidious menace to reach such an advanced stage that remedial measures will be unavailing. The people of this Dominion must be made aware of their deadly danger, for what is the use of fighting a war to save civilisation, and of all our much-vaunted social amenities and high standard of .living, if wo are going to allow our precious soil, the basis of our very existence, to be swept out to sea?—l am, etc., ANTI-EROSION. Masterton. October 10.