Soil Erosion: A National Problem.

That the problem of soil erosion should be treated at its source rather than attempts made to treat the symptoms only, was emphasised by Dr. L. Li, of Lignan University, China, when he was lecturing last night to the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Remedial treatment had to begin in the watersheds, he said. Education was needed to make people soil-conservation minded, and man must be taught to regard land as something more than a piece of property to be bought or sold. It was not his to treat as he like; it was a priceless gift of Nature, to be shared with his fellow-men and with the men of the generations to follow.

Dr. Li referred to soil erosion in China and in the United States. He showed how erosion had been accelerated by man's unthinking treatment of the land. In China the removal of timber over a period of 20 centuries had brought about a serious soil erosion problem; but an equivalent state of affairs had been brought about in the United States in one-tenth of that time through over-grazing of pastures and the removal of coverage. Erosion problems were not confined to elevated areas only. Valleys suffered through being covered with coarse material, through the silting of rivers.

The lecturer's lantern slides showed methods adopted in the United States to stop erosion in the area known as the “dust-bowl” and elsewhere. The planting of conifers, contour ploughing and strip planting were discussed as remedial measures, the point being made that the problem was one which could not be treated piecemeal: it needed a definite policy formulated by the Government, for the land could not be allowed to suffer further under the ruthless treatment of private ownership.