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mouths. "Should there be any appreciable silting up of the Ruamahanga near its mouth, the consequences will be most disastrous to the whole of the Wairarapa in flood time." And if we add to the damage thus done by banking up the flood-waters, the injury inflicted everywhere on our costal trade by the choking of otherwise navigable rivers, we must agree that "what is wanted is a comprehensive scheme for river conservation all over New Zealand, outlined by Government engineers especially appointed for the purpose." But these articles have been written to little purpose if I have not by this time convinced my readers that no scheme of soil protection or river conservation can be of any value which does not take into account the devastating effects of the destruction of the natural bush along the banks of our streams.

DENUDATION AND EROSION.

But the prevalence of floods and the silting up of rivers and bar-harbours is not by any means the only evil effect of deforestation, of which New Zealand has already had practical experience. I have spoken earlier in these articles of the terrible consequences of erosion and denudation on hillsides where forests have been cut away; and though our country has been too recently settled and cleared to exhibit the worst effects of these changes, it is no exaggeration to say that there is not a single district in the Dominion from the Bluff to the North Cape that does not in some way illustrate my argument. Travelling recently from Wellington to Auckland by the Main Trunk line, I looked out on mile after mile of hillside where the bush had been cut out, and where great gashes and clefts and channels had already been torn by landslips or scoured by rain. Everywhere these infallible signs show that the soil, no longer kept in place by trees and brushwood, is being washed down into the valleys, and it is only a matter of time before the hills will be stripped bare and the flats at their base will themselves be overlaid with the clay and shingle that will pour down as the process of erosion goes on. What all this may ultimately mean to the country, it is, as one of the greatest authorities on the subject has said, very difficult to convey in words. Marsh has traced in detail with impressive eloquence the transformation of "forest-crowned hills, luxuriant pasture grounds, and abundant cornfields and vineyards well watered by springs and fertilising rivulets to bald mountain ridges, rocky declivities and steep earth banks furrowed by deep ravines with beds now dry, now filled by torrents of fluid mud and gravel hurrying down to spread themselves over the plain and dooming to everlasting barrenness the once productive fields. In traversing such scenes," adds this distinguished observer, "it is difficult to resist the impression that Nature pronounced the curse of perpetual sterility and desolation upon these sublime but fearful wastes, difficult to believe that they once were, and but for the folly of man might still be, blessed with all the natural advantages which Providence has bestowed upon the most-favoured climes." This is no imaginative or fanciful description. It is absolutely realistic in its accuracy, and it depicts only too clearly the terrible fate that may overtake New Zealand, as it has overtaken many other lands, if we disregard the warnings of history and the recorded experience of the past, and recklessly destroy our forests for the sake of a little temporary gain.

A PLEA FOR CAUTION.

At this juncture I am well aware that I am likely t be met with the question: "Do you really mean that we ought never to cut down bush; and if you do mean it, what will become of the timber industry, and how is the country to be settled?" I reply that there is no reason why a rational policy of conservation should not be ferfectly consistent with the maintenance of a large timber trade and with the steady progress and development of the country. The difficulty is

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