ANIMAL INDUSTRY 437 



part of Uganda. It would involve changes in native systems of 

 land tenure of a type which is thought by many to be the first 

 logical stage in improving the lot of the native and in preserving 

 his land for future generations. Meanwhile, other more easily 

 applicable measures are under trial. 



In the native territories of South Africa the position is bad, 

 Mr. R. W. Thornton, who was transferred from the Department 

 of Agriculture to the Native Administration in 1929 to make a 

 survey of the situation, reported in 1933 (unpublished) that all the 

 native areas were carrying four times as many stock per 1,000 

 morgen as the European areas, with the result that pastures were 

 seriously denuded and erosion had set in. For example, in Natal, 

 except in parts of Zululand, it is said that three-quarters of the 

 total area is affected by soil erosion; the present reduction of pro- 

 ductivity is estimated at 10 per cent and, if erosion continues un- 

 checked, this percentage is likely to rise to forty in twenty years 

 time. As Director of Native Agriculture in the Union Mr. Thorn- 

 ton has devised a method which has led to reductions in the number 

 of stock without undue trouble. During some four years he has 

 succeeded, through the medium of public auction sales, in securing 

 the disposal of thousands of native-owned cattle for slaughter and 

 other purposes. Such stock sales are now established in Bechuana- 

 land, Transvaal, Natal, and Zululand, that at Nongoma in Zulu- 

 land being the most successful; at one sale there 7(^3,594 was real- 

 ized. The success of such sales, however, necessarily depends on 

 the general economic condition of the peoples concerned and the 

 relative value which they attach to cash and stock. This has been 

 the initial stage in a programme of which the aims are to reduce 

 numbers and especially to eliminate thousands of undesirable 

 bulls (some 47,000 have already been eliminated); to improve 

 cattle by selection and the use of improved bulls, under what has 

 become known as the 'Bull Camp Scheme'; and to introduce a 

 six-years' rotational grazing system which, if correctly carried out, 

 should preserve the pasture for all time. A compulsory fencing 

 proclamation was made in 1931, and this has been applied to 

 Msinga, where work has been financed from the Zulu Native 

 Trust Fund. 



In East Africa several recent reports, which suggest measures 



