436 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



dealt with more fully in the report of the South African Drought 

 Commission (1923) than in any other document. Its conclusions, 

 however, are not always directly applicable to countries outside 

 South Africa. In that country erosion has been accelerated by the 

 substitution of stock-raising on farms for the old nomadic method 

 of herding. The farm is soon intensively overgrazed and eroded, 

 and the large herd proceeds to attack another small area. A 

 principal recommendation of the Drought Commission is that the 

 kraaling of stock should be replaced by paddocking for the follow- 

 ing reasons: kraaling involves much driving, increased food re- 

 quirements and trampling; grassland management depends to a 

 large extent on periods of rest and recuperation for the pasture, 

 and this is impossible until rotational grazing can be controlled 

 by paddocking; the much debated use of fire as a stimulant to 

 young nutritious grass can be controlled adequately only if the 

 land is divided up into paddocks by fencing. On the whole opinion 

 is tending to regard firing as generally deleterious since it promotes 

 erosion as well as the growth of the young grass. The Drought 

 Commission's report stresses that the wide areas of veld country, 

 which can only be kept fit for grazing by annual firing, would be 

 much better under forest, but there is no proof yet that they would 

 support forest if planted. These questions depend to a large extent 

 on the plant ecology and the improvement of pastures, subjects 

 which have been discussed in Chapter VI. 



More recent researches in South Africa tend to show that the 

 problem of overgrazing is even more complex than was demon- 

 strated by the Drought Commission, and in particular that the 

 substitution of paddocking for kraaling, though highly desirable, 

 is by no means a cure-all, and in many of the areas now seriously 

 affected is likely to be uneconomic for a long while to come. This 

 last contention applies still more forcibly to the pastoral areas in 

 the native territories. Perhaps a system of paddocking and the 

 cultivation of pastures will be the eventual condition of animal 

 husbandry in native as in European areas, but obviously the cost 

 of fencing will remain far too high for the average peasant for 

 many years to come. An alternative method of enclosing land, 

 possible in some areas of suitable climate, is to plant thorn fences 

 and trees. It has been pointed out that this could be done in every 



