MITIGATION OF FLOODS IN THE RIVER HUNTER. 119 



servation. The young seedlings are palatable to stock and 

 hence they are eaten out if they have free access to them. 

 This points to the necessary precaution that stock should 

 not have unfettered access to the bed of a stream, as if it 

 were a public highway. The seedling oaks should be care- 

 fully conserved until they are out of reach of stock. Great 

 numbers of river oaks have been cut down this year for 

 fodder alone. 



One lays especial stress on the value of the river oak 

 for purposes of bank protection, for the reason that it has 

 for ages been the natural bank protector of these streams, 

 and has become largely adapted to its environment. At 

 the same time the acquisition of these lands by the white 

 man and his method of dealing with the banks and adjacent 

 country, constitutes a marked change in the conditions, 

 and it may be that other trees are even better than the 

 river oak for the purposes of bank conservation. River 

 oaks have not a large tap-root; they have rather flat, 

 spreading roots which penetrate the rich soil and silt on 

 the bed of gravel already alluded to. When this gravel 

 becomes bared, as it does in so many places, the river oak 

 heels over and falls into the stream just as a boulder does. 



2. Other bank-protectors (exotic). — Here and there one 

 finds that plants other than river oaks have been utilized 

 to protect the banks. Willows are the favourites, and I 

 think rightly so. They grow naturally on the banks of 

 streams, and during the winter months propagate naturally 

 or artificially by cuttings very readily. Thus a flood which 

 breaks off branches is the means of establishing other trees 

 lower down. Stakes of wilJow up to six inches in diameter 

 may be driven into the banks near the water, and in an 

 ordinary season may be relied upon to flourish. At Segenhoe 

 there is about a quarter of a mile of Nicotians glauca, a 

 South American weed, under the steep bank, which has 



