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TUTIRA 



on the warmer, drier north and west hill-slopes, short and sparse on the 

 tops. 



The earliest sheep carried were merino, an easily scared breed, 

 which upon the least alarm sought refuge on the heights. Beaming 

 on the tops, they nipped off and trampled out the meagre covering 

 of fern, their sharp hoofs broke through the dusty humus and pumice 

 grit, allowing arid summer gales from the nor'-west to breach the hill- 

 brow and blow away both humus and grit, leaving an absolutely naked 

 surface of tightly-packed, slightly greasy, smooth red sand. In the 

 'eighties many prominent hill -tops were in this way blown bald and 

 bare, such wind-blows being especially well-marked on the Rocky Stair- 

 case tops, on the crown of the Natural Paddock, on the Image Hill, on 

 the Racecourse top, on Table Mountain, on the Second Range, on the 

 Burnt Blanket. Each of these hill - summits, where there had been 

 originally a light loose covering of soil nourishing a sparse crop of 



i . Hill-top growing fern. 



2. Hill- top blown bare. 



3. Hill-top in grass. 



bracken, became, in the second place, a barren tract of red sand ; in 

 the third a deep -green luxuriant carpet of turf. Sheep which had 

 caused the scar had also contrived the cure. Camping at night on the 

 highest ground within reasonable reach, they gradually enriched the 

 tops by their manure. On these bare naked wind -blows sheep lay, 

 their numbers increasing as the run progressed. Their droppings and 

 urine were washed by rain, or blown by wind, towards the edges of the 

 scar. Grasses of creeping habit, especially Poa pratensis, certain members 

 of the clover family, and certain weeds, Cotula asiatica, Geranium 

 sessiliflorum, Oxalis corniculata, and others, crept over the bare space as 

 the bark of a wounded bough envelopes the scar. The slightly greasy 

 nature of the tightly-packed deposit of smooth red sand prevented direct 

 absorption of the sheep manure ; there was only, therefore, encroachment 

 from the edges ; inch by inch the turf crept upward until the wind-blow 

 was completely carpeted, until the bare red sand had been transmuted 



