222 DEVELOPMENT OF THE COASTAL BELT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



ajjples. pears, peaches, apricots, figs, nectarines, g-uavas, almonds, 

 cherries, wahiuts, strawberries, Cape g-ooseberries, mulberries, 

 Japanese plums of all kinds, and citrus fruits of all kinds. Not 

 the least valuable product of the coastal belt is the wattle tree, 

 a.?, through its rapid growth, it will produce a paying crop in 

 five to seven years, so enabling the ordinary fanner to grow it ; 

 whereas most other timber trees, owing to their slow growth, can 

 only afford to be grown by public bodies or wealthy people. 

 There is room for a very large extension of wattle growing in 

 the coastal belt, not so much for its bark as for its timber, as the 

 raw material for distillation, producing such valuable products 

 as pyroligneous acid and methyl alcohol. These are of great 

 importance in many of the arts, particularlv in the manufacture 

 of smokeless powder, chloroform, iodoform, creosote, and arti- 

 ficial dyes, and acetic acid, with all its various compounds. 

 Tests recently undertaken by the Im])erial Institute, London, have 

 demonstratecl that black wattle wood is e(|ual to oak for distilla- 

 tion purposes, the rejxirt stating that " the yield of acid is 

 distinctly high." Thus, the black wattle tree should become an 

 important factor in the establishment of industries in the coa.stal 

 area. After distillation it will leave clean charcoal, etc., as a 

 cheap bye-product to produce exceedingly cheap power, by means 

 of suction gas, for the many industries to spring up in the 

 coastal belt, for which there will not be water power available. 



Having considered the potential wealth of the coastal region, 

 we must next consider how this potential wealth is to 'be con- 

 verted into actual wealth. The first step the author would 

 advocate is the acquisition of the rain belt by the Government 

 and the removal therefrom of all human habitations, whether 

 European or Native, and the planting of the whole area, which 

 is not at present forest clad, with trees, every care being taken to 

 preserve the springs. This belt should be under the joint 

 control of the Forest and Irrigation Departments. The next 

 step is to build storage dams to equalise the flow-off from this 

 area, and to place the different rivers under some single control, 

 such as a River Board, from their source to the sea. The third 

 step would be to build railways parallel to the rivers, so as to 

 open up industries, worked by the water power. 



To see what effect this would have upon the coastal area, we 

 will again take the Buffalo as a typical example. Fortunately, 

 practically the whole of the Buffalo catchment area in the rain 

 belt is forest clad, belonging to the Government ; so the first step 

 necessary would be to build sufffcient storage reserv(«rs to equalise 

 the flow. We have already seen that this would give, past King- 

 williamstown, a daily flow of 27 million gallons per day. Thus 

 we should have a si)len(lid. clear, perennial river, the upper 

 reaches stocked with trout, the middle with carp, and the lower 

 reaches with fish cominsj up from the sea. and with a flow like 

 this the whole river would be plentifully supplied with eels. The 

 storage reservoirs would largely prevent floods ; so that, instead 



