The Advance of the Desert 



some Free State farmer can tell ! But, besides 

 the Kalahari, each part of the union has its 

 own desert or dry lands. For every vacant 

 erf x is a tiny wilderness ; every treeless farm 

 a little desert. 



Is it possible, then, the reader may ask, to 

 check the advance of the desert, conquer the 

 crop-blighting winds of aridity, and ameliorate 

 the climatic conditions of a vast country such 

 as the Kalahari ? Yes ; but three things are 

 essential — Population, Conservation and 

 Afforestation. 



The great droughts of the world are most 

 frequent, not in the well-peopled centres, but in 

 the wilderness and the solitary place. South 

 Africa is paralysed by her huge farms 2 and her 

 vast, vacant spaces. How shall we conquer 

 drought ? — for, assuredly, it will come again. 

 There is but one remedy. Plant more people 

 on your desolate lands, and then you will cease 

 to fear drought. 



In a speech recently delivered in London, an 

 Australian premier remarked that Population 

 was merely another term for Patriotism, mean- 

 ing thereby that everyone who had the highest 



*Erf = A garden plot — usualty about half-an-acre. 

 * The size of average farm in the Transvaal is 5000 acres. 



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