ANIMAL INDUSTRY 435 



25,000 are overstocked, including what was formerly some of the 

 best land in the Lake, Central, Northern, and Western Provinces. 

 He calculates that this land is still capable of carrying upwards of 

 2,000,000 cattle together with nearly the same number of sheep 

 and goats, but at present is being asked to sustain half as many 

 more. 



Whether overstocking is relative or absolute, it is certain that 

 grazing in some areas has produced erosion so extensive that the 

 time required for recuperation of the soil and pasture has been 

 lengthened almost to ipfinity. Several districts in Kenya and Tan- 

 ganyika have been complete devastated. The Kenya Land Com- 

 mission's Report (Kenya 1934, Part 2, paragraphs 955 and 956) 

 instances cases where there is but one head of cattle to twelve acres, 

 and yet practically no grass is to be seen. Evidence before that , 

 commission showed that within the memory of European settlers 

 in the country the areas which now carry scarcely any stock, were 

 covered with grass vegetation. By contrast with this state of 

 affairs, Uganda is not, generally speaking, overstocked. In certain 

 areas, however, there are now too many cattle and the surveys 

 in progress are designed to elucidate the facts in order that mea- 

 sures may be taken in good time. Cattle population returns are 

 given in the agricultural department reports for Bugwere and 

 Teso, and show the rate of increase in these densely populated 

 districts. It is clear that accurate data on this point are quite 

 essential for progress in native husbandry. 



In the great savannah and grassland belt which stretches with- 

 out interruption from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan along the sou- 

 thern border of the Sahara to the coast of Senegal, the results of 

 overgrazing, though recognized locally, do not seem to be nearly 

 so serious as in East and South Africa, Even in the densely popu- 

 lated Emirates of Northern Nigeria there appears to be little 

 danger of an increase of stock to saturation point. Perhaps this 

 can be explained by the longer time which the cattle-owning 

 tribes have had for the development of husbandry in an environ- 

 ment which has not been markedly disturbed, as have Eastern 

 and Southern Africa, by the coming of the white man and the 

 sudden cessation of inter-tribal wars and cattle thieving. 



Measures to prevent the consequences of overgrazing have been 



