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11. CONDITION OF THE LAND Special clause (2) of our Warrant: " The condition and possible improvement of any land used, formerly used, or capable of being used, for sheep-farming, and particularly the deterioration of any such land, especially high and hill country land, whether by erosion of soil, second growth of trees or plants, spread of noxious weeds, rabbits, depletion, or any other causes, and the methods of improving or regenerating such land." (We have considered it best to deal with noxious weeds under Section 111, and to include under this section the availability of fertilizer specifically mentioned in clause (3).) We do not propose to comment on the condition of improved good pastures; they are an obvious credit to the farming community and a valuable asset to the nation. Their condition presents no grave problems. It is necessary to consider the remaining pastoral lands in three groups under the headings " Deterioration," " Depletion," and " Erosion." 1. DETERIORATION Deteriorated lands are those where there has been such a decline in fertility that improved grasses will no longer survive and the opened pastures are being invaded by scrub, fern, and weeds. The amount of deterioration varies from 100 per cent, over large tracts to small patches of second growth which expand every year. This invasion of land by second growth is a slow, ever-mounting tide which squeezes the farmer from prosperity to penury in the vain fight to halt it, then engulfs his land so that he walks off penniless, leaving behind the tragedy of abandoned lands, which are a loss to the nation as well as a heart-break to the farmer. (i) Causes The problem of deterioration arises from our inheritance of the basic conditions precedent to the establishment of our pastoral industries. At the advent of planned European settlement in 1840 possibly three-fifths of the land of New Zealand was heavily covered with forest. The remainder was mainly in tussock, with areas of scrub and fern where the bush had been burnt by the Maoris. The original condition of the land at the establishment of the sheep industry is shown in the maps of each Island (No. 9). It is possible that some of the scrub and fern shown in the central North Island area was originally tussock, but it degenerated to scrub very quickly under the .burning which was necessary to the depasturing of sheep on it. Not much of the soil which lay beneath the forest covering was in itself sufficiently fertile to maintain pastures permanently. However, when the bush was felled and burnt the resultant wood-ash gave the soil a type of top-dressing, producing an initial high fertility. This was shown in the lush growth of English grasses such as rye-grass and cocksfoot, which came away remarkably well after the burn. Some of the land carried four to five sheep to the acre within a year or two of clearing. The sheep industry