140 C. J. McMASTER. 
into drifts, leaving bare patches of stones or clay to mark 
the place that once was covered with soil and valuable 
fodder plants. 
Mr. Maiden’s suggestion that indigenous plants should 
be planted and conserved for the purpose of checking sand 
encroachments is a most valuable one. If native plants 
can be conserved and plantations of the kind recommended 
by him can be successfully formed, the sands could no 
doubt be kept within reasonable bounds, but the cost of 
making plantations would be out of all proportion to the 
productive capacity of the extremely low grade country in 
which the sand-drifts occur and which embraces such a 
very large extent of the Western Division of New South 
Wales. The pastoral occupiers in these localities could 
not possibly afford to meet the heavy expenditure that 
would be required for plantation purposes, and unless the 
work was carried out by the State there is little prospect 
of its being done at all, or at any rate until such time as 
the stocking of the country can be regulated, so that com- 
paratively large quantities of stock in good seasons, and 
none or very few in times of drought, may be kept upon the 
land. At present the conditions surrounding the pastoral 
industry in the remote interior are such that in times of 
drought it is frequently impossible to remove stock by road 
to more favored localities because of the absence of both 
feed and water on the intervening stock routes. The 
result is that the country remains overstocked at a time 
when it is least able to bear it, and almost every particle 
of edible vegetation is eaten and trampled out. In cases 
of this kind the pastoralist is the victim of circumstances 
over which he has practically little control, and the evil 
effects of the large number of stock upon the land, under 
the circumstances mentioned, is greatly intensified by 
rabbits which efiectually destroy every remaining vestige 
’ 
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