322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
The history of the tussock lands is an almost continuous story of 
progressive deterioration due to overgrazing, burning, rabbit infesta- 
tion, and increased wind erosion, land slip, soil creep, and water 
erosion. The present deserts in northern Canterbury, Marlboro, 
and Central Otago Provinces were grasslands when white settlement 
began, and the carrying capacity of most sheep runs is today far less 
than it was in the beginning. Everywhere one can see erosion that 
is of recent origin. A most definite sign of overgrazing in South 
Island is the excessive development of the scabweed, Raoulia lutescens. 
(See pl. 8, fig. 2.) Usually the rabbit population increases as the 
tussocks diminish and more open spaces are formed. This only 
accelerates the destructive process. It is important to keep in mind 
that the tussock grasses themselves are rarely grazed, except the new 
growth which springs up after they are burned over, which is tradi- 
tionally done annually. The role of the tussocks is to furnish pro- 
tection to the smaller grasses and other plants which grow among 
them and furnish most of the feed. 
The tussock grasslands of South Island have been dealt with rather 
fully by Zotov (28) and recommendations presented for restoring these 
areas to production. First, annual burning must be eliminated or, if 
absolutely necessary to eliminate shrubby invaders, replaced with 
carefully controlled burning. The number of grazing animals must 
be reduced to the carrying capacity of the land and rotational grazing 
introduced in order to restore the fertility. When necessary, the tus- 
sock grass must be replanted with selected unpalatable strains or jor- 
danons, and, when a protective covering is thus established, highly 
palatable strains of native species must be sown between the tussocks. 
Hardly any of these measures are now used by the sheepmen. It was 
most gratifying to have a glimpse of the Government’s research work in 
tussock-grass restoration at its field station in Hutt Valley near 
Wellington. The work done there is preliminary to research and 
experimentation in the tussock country itself and will surely some 
day result in restoration of much depleted land. Probably some 
areas have gone almost beyond reclamation and will remain, as have 
so many other parts of the world, monuments to man’s lack of fore- 
sight and self-control in seizing all the produce of the land rather than 
just its surplus. 
SHRUBLAND AND FERNLAND 
No traveler in New Zealand can fail to be impressed, and at the 
same time generally depressed, by the vast extent of land covered by 
shrubs and ferns. Unlike the grasslands, they bring no sense of well- 
being to man, and, compared with the forest, they at first seem 
botanically unattractive. But neither impression is wholly correct. 
