The Conquest of the Desert 



interests of the Commonwealth at heart must 

 labour earnestly and ceaselessly to fill up her 

 empty spaces with a sturdy race of British 

 emigrants. The same might be said with equal 

 truth of South Africa. 







By the term Conservation I mean the storage 

 of soil moisture by deep ploughing and thorough 

 cultivation. Think of the millions of tons of 

 water which might be retained in the ground 

 for a year or more if the mile-long desert pans 1 

 were ploughed and planted. Then would come 

 the Conservation of winter fodder by means of 

 ensilage. 



Lastly, Afforestation. In the desert the 

 gigantic wave-like sand - dunes are for ever 

 moving slowly, shifting hither and thither, 

 throwing out long, restless tongues of burning, 

 wind-blown sand which, year by year, cover 

 up large tracts of deep, rich, silty soil in river- 

 bed or fertile plain. It is lamentable to see 

 the rapid destruction of magnificent tracts of 

 land by soil erosion all over South Africa. 

 Huge dongas, like the Bad Lands of North 

 Dakota, are already in process of formation. 

 This can only be checked by a systematic scheme 



1 A dried-up depression usually brakish. 

 6 



