(3.) Blizzards.

In certain parts, chiefly on the level lands along the west coast, and notably on the long stretch between Cape Egmont and Wellington, a new trouble has arrived in the shape of the “blizzard,” the name signifying in America a snow-blast, but which has in the locality under mention been applied to the salt storms that drive in from Cook Strait. The district has always been a windy one, as may be seen by the growth of the old native trees still standing, the weather side of the karakas, mahoes, &c., being shorn off, while the tall trunks of the rimus and kahikateas lean out of the perpendicular. But with the removal, partly by the axe and partly by decay induced by the rumination of cattle, of the belt of scrub and small bush that stretched along the coast the conditions have altered greatly for the worse. The salt spray that was once stopped by this natural breakwind is now carried for miles inland, and is not only severely felt by stock, but is most injurious to almost every kind of vegetation. An object-lesson might have been watched in the gradual destruction of an extensive plantation of macrocarpa-trees made some thirty-five years ago near Hawera. These for some time did very well. They grew uniformly to a fair height, and promised to make a most useful shelter-belt. But in proportion as the natural bush to seaward disappeared they were no longer able to stand against the salt blasts. Swept by successive blizzards, they gradually perished, until a few years ago a picture in the Auckland Weekly News showed the last survivor, a storm-beaten dying wreck.

This is, of course, an extreme case; but the same thing may be seen more or less on any exposed part of the coast from which the natural protection has been removed.