44 Transactions. Miscellaneous. 
windward, where it ceases to have onward motion, and, rising higher and 
higher, its leeward side towards the fence soon shows a face as steep as the 
material will allow of. The drift still rises, and the crest rolls over the steep 
side, continually approaching the fence, until at last it is buried. A forest 
has the same effect and ultimate fate. Of what use, then, is planting young 
trees, if fences and old “bush” are of so little avail? But the same 
experience shows that if the drift can be arrested at its source, then all to 
leeward may be gradually worked on and reclaimed. 
There can be little doubt that these hills have been originally blown up 
from the sea sand, but this has been most likely during a gradual elevation of 
the land. The closing in of the valleys above mentioned with nearly 500 feet 
of sand seems conclusive on that point. But it is most unlikely that any rein- 
forcement of sand is now got from the beach. The hills in general rise 100 feet 
to 300 feet abruptly from high-water mark, and the drift does not appear to 
rise much above the surface. The face of the coast then, and the tops of the 
first hills, are the places where, if anywhere, an effectual start can be made to 
arrest the evil. 
In Mr. Whitcombe’s paper much valuable information is given as to the 
methods found successful in France, and a record is given of the plants and 
trees found most efficacious. But it seems in the case of the hills under 
reference in our Province, that the violence of the south-west winds is such 
that it would not prevent any shrubs or trees from having the sand blown 
from under them, unless it is first protected by a sward of some grassy sort of 
vegetation. The effects of the prevalent winds are strikingly indicated by the 
appearance of the “bush” near the Manukau South Head." The prevailing 
timber is puriri, and the branches and foliage look as if shorn, and have a 
singular overlapping appearance, one tree with another, as of a roof shingled 
and lapped the wrong way. 
The reclamation of the Surrey Hills, in Sydney, is a case in point. There 
the sand was of a nature even less adapted to support vegetation, being 
sharper and more suitable for builders’ use. Yet these heights, which not long 
ago were a waste of driving sand, are now covered with a beautiful sward of 
grass. The means in detail by which this was accomplished is unknown to 
the writer, but he has a recollection of hearing a description of a method 
adopted in some of the Western Isles of Scotland, and which was successful. 
There the difficulty was, as with us, to keep the seeds of the grasses stable 
sufficiently long to allow of germination and striking root. The grasses 
selected were, when seeded and ripe, spun into hay ropes without threshing. 
These ropes were pegged to the sand all over the area to be reclaimed, in 
chequered lines. The seed was thus enabled to germinate and take firm hold, 
and soon the whole was an uniform mass of vegetation. Such a process is 
