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 * 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 a 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 



1 Erf = A garden plot usually about half-an-acre. 



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



5 



