y04 Journal of Agriculture. [lo Nov., 1908.- 



BRACKEN AXD ITS BINDING EFFECT ON LOOSE, 

 SANDY, COASTAL SOILS. 



Alfred J. Ezvart, D.Sc., Ph.D., F.L.S., Government Botanist. 



After having tried several methods, of eradication a Gippsland cor- 

 respondent writes to say, that he has come to the conclusion that the 

 method recommended by the Department of deep cultivation, pulling alt 

 the rhizomes out on the surface with a " cultivator " is the cheapest and 

 best. It is found, however, that exposed sandy coastal soils, after such 

 thorough cultivation, commence to drift about with every strong gale of 

 wind in spring and summer; this causes him to ask whether the reason 

 bracken is so plentiful on loose sandy coastal soils, is that nature intended 

 it to make and bind these soils. 



That bracken binds the sandy soils on which it grows on the coast and 

 prevents them drifting is undoubted. If su-ch soils are to be cultivated it 

 should be done in the form of strips, care being taken that no great 

 breadth is broken up at one time. If each strip, after cultivation, is seeded 

 down with strong grasses and drought resistant clovers such as the birds- 

 foot trefoil, the less strongly scented forms of Melilotus, &c., there should 

 be no danger of drifting. The planting of hedges (Tea-tree, Acacia, 

 Tree lucerne, Tagasaste, lS^c), or clumps or belts of trees would be of 

 great use as breakwinds. Natural timber should on no account be 

 destroyed. 



To say that nature intended bracken to play the part of binding these 

 soils, otherwise it would not be there, is to beg the question. Nature 

 intended dodder to grow on lucerne, mistletoe on forest-trees, and thistles 

 on pastures, but man interferes. In the case under discussion bracken can 

 be replaced by humus forming plants, such as clover, &c., by sand-binding 

 grasses, as Psamma, Cynodon, Elymus. &c. ; and by sheltering the soil 

 by trees and hedges, thus reclaiming a good deal of land for posture and 

 some for permanent cultivation without any danger of loss. Wherever 

 man interferes with nature by substituting one plant for another care must 

 always be taken to see that the balance of nature is restored in a manner 

 suitable to the changed conditions. For instance, if a sand-binding plant 

 is replaced by more useful ones which do not bind sand so well, the 

 balance must be restored bv the use of break-winds of some kind or other.- 



