The Conquest of the Desert 



was : " Why think, Try." It is a motto which 

 should be graven in gold in every homestead of 

 South Africa. Again and again we hear the 

 thoughtless statement that this crop will not 

 grow or that sickness cannot be eradicated. 

 But have we ever tried ? For a decade and 

 more the sombre shadow of disease has darkened 

 this fair land. It paralysed activity and bred 

 in our people a nerveless fatalism. The 

 greatest bacteriologist of the age was hurried 

 from Berlin to Bulawayo. He came armed 

 with test-tube, microscope and microtome. Yet 

 he failed, save perhaps for that racy farewell 

 message : " The disease will sweep to the sea." 

 But at the other end of the sickness zone a plain 

 man stood face to face with the same problem. 

 To him it meant penury or affluence. Around 

 him the cattle were dying in hundreds. Sud- 

 denly, on his own farm, he arrested the plague 

 by a simple experiment. He persevered and 

 was soon successful beyond his wildest dreams. 

 By his practical discovery South Africa becomes 

 at one bound the grandest cattle country in 

 the British Empire. The conqueror of the tick 

 by means of dipping is Joseph Baynes, of Nels 

 Rust, Natal. 



During a visit last month to this Province we 

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