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The innumerable creeks will doubtless require to be dealt witb in any 
effective remedy for the mitigation of floods. There is evidence everywhere of 
broadening streams, of banks breaking down, and good soil washed away. Apple 
(Angophora intermedia) and River Oak (Casuarina Cunning hamiana) doubtless 
filled these flats, and they have been removed in order to cultivate the rich land to 
the fullest extent. The denudation is going on in geometrical progression. There 
are farmers even in a small valley like that of the Page, near Murrurundi, who 
have lost as much as 50 acres through breaking down of banks. 
What we see in the small creeks is repeated in the big rivers, so this is not a 
local matter merely as regards the little creeks. With friable banks, every fresh 
carries down soil to the lower levels, and the stronger the current, of course, the 
greater the debris. This tends to \vork destruction at the lower levels. By all 
means, therefore, let us encourage people to prevent the erosion of the land higher 
up. It is not only that land is lost by erosion, but the land becomes a motive 
power to destroy property lower down. Much of the silt that people complacently 
see deposited on their ground is, of course, the soil of some unfortunate cultivator. 
The matter might settle itself eventually by there being no more friable 
material to be washed away from the upper lands. If one could estimate the 
percentage of " flats " area which has disappeared since the advent of the white man 
on some of the Upper Hunter streams, I think the result would be startling. 
HI. Deviation of Roads Under Drainage Manuring. 
The annual cost to the Roads Department of deviations necessitated by 
washaways and repairs necessary by washaways must be very considerable, and 
having made special inquiries, I find that many of these washaways are the direct 
result of the destruction by private owners of trees along the getaways for water. 
If the cost to the Roads Department and to private citizens of road deviations (witli 
culverts, &c.) necessary through the washing away of the banks of rivers and creeks 
in the Hunter Valley were available, I think it would surprise a great many people. 
If the Public Works Department were to select, say, a hundred definite places 
on rivers, creeks, and furrows, in cleared land (what I might term "incipient creeks") 
and photograph them every year for, say, five or ten years, the results would be of 
the highest educational value. They would be of value to the whole State, for the 
phenomena of aqueous denudation are in operation everywhere, although the results 
may not be, in most places, so disastrous as on the Hunter. 
Under-drainage preserves the roads, and wherever practicable it should be 
resorted to. The sides of roads should not always be used as drains, as torrents 
may tear the road away. Of course, a certain amount of surface drainage is indis- 
pensable, but it should always be borne in mind that under-drainage preserves the 
roads and makes the fields normally drier and sweeter. 
