PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :--
TC.O. 885
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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if it is eaten down a little it comes up again, and will grow unless eaten off a second time, and when it is in ear game does not eat it much.
Sisal is only eaten by the game when it is young-up to eighteen months or two years. The game chew the leaves for the moisture, and in trying to pull them off, Game will never touch sisal when there is pull up the young plants by the roots.
plenty of grass.
Beans and Indian corn are also eaten when very young. It is during times of drought, when rain which should have come has failed, that the game overruns cultivated land so badly, but I must point out that in such seasons, although the seed planted comes up and makes a show when it is young, if the rain does not continue the crop will come to nothing in any case, and this loss is debited to the game when it is in reality due to drought. For if the rains had been good, and the crop also good, there would also have been grass and water away on the plains, and the game would not have overrun the crop. The cases where this condition does not hold good are the Mua Hills and Doinyo Sabuk. where there may be enough rain, even in drought years, to grow crops, which then, of course, attract the game.
It is universally recognised by all the farmers in the districts in question that it is during bad drought years that the game does serious damage to crops.
In such seasons crops cannot be grown on the dry plains, but only in the Mua Hills and the higher country around Doinyo Sabuk. All the Boer farmers around Lukenia told me that their greatest difficulty was the lack of rain. They said if they could get enough rain to grow a crop the game would cat it. Mr. T. Deacon, near Athi River, and Mr. Anderson, who is managing four farms for Mr. Linton, both said that after five years' experience of the Athi Plains they were satisfied that it was not a suitable district for agriculture, as the rainfall was too little, but that it was essentially a stock or ostrich farmers' country. Sir Alfred Pease also agrees with this view. A good deal is also to be heard from a certain class of person as to " what they would have done " and "would do" if it were not for the game. Such persons are always the bitterest complainants against the game, but it is worthy of note that they are equally bitter against the Government and laws generally, which, in their opinion, are all wrong, and have helped to prevent them making money. In wasters "bad pioneers." reality these men are what might be described as Usually well past middle life, or if younger, damaged by alcohol, their lives have been failures, and are not likely to be anything else in the future, and as an asset to any Colony they are a negligible quantity. If it were known, the real complaint such people have against the game is that they cannot slaughter it and make money out of As the opposite of this type, I could name farmers in the sale of hides and meat. the districts in question who are doing well, and mean to do better, with or without game and droughts.
3.-CARRYING AND DISTRIBUTING TICKS.
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The opinion is almost universally held among settlers that the extermination of the game would be followed by the disappearance of the ticks which infest the Athi plains. This is a fallacy which can be seen by a comparison with other places. 11 we go up into the Rift Valley, where there is just as much game, especially zebras, which carry most ticks, we find no ticks, or only so few as not to be worth considera- tion. The same is true of the Uasin Gishu plateau.
In parts of South Africa, in Natal, Cape Colony, and the Transvaal there are tick-infested districts which have always been tick-infested, and in spite of the fact that the game has been exterminated for something like 50 years, these districts are still as badly infested as ever. In Scotland, in Peebleshire, in the parish of Yarrow and Ettrick, there are tick-infested districts which are known as "unsound ground on which sheep do not do well; these districts have always been infested.
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That the game carries and distributes great numbers of ticks there is little doubt; for instance, when the Mua Hills were occupied by the Wakamba, who are a hunting tribe, there are said to have been no ticks there, but since the Wakamba were moved back into the native reserve, the hills are only populated by the few farms, and, driven by the last few years' drought, the game has wandered up on to these hills, the lower slopes of which are now tick-infested. But those farmers who cherish the belief that by the extermination of the big game they will be delivered from the tick plague are destined to receive the bitterest disappointment.
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Every hare carries numbers of ticks, so do rats and mice and the tortoise; also quite a large number of birds, such as larks, pipits, and francolin, have ticks If it was possible on them, sometimes quite a number, generally on the head or neck. to exterminate all animal life on the Athi plains the ticks would die out, but as this is not possible, it follows that there will always be a small quantity of ticks kept alive by smaller game and other animals, and as soon as any parts of the country become well stocked with cattle or sheep, the ground being suitable for ticks, they will multiply and be as numerous as ever in a few years. There is only one method of clearing such country of ticks, and that is by fencing farms and again sub- dividing and then systematically dipping.
There is a fact I should like to point out, and that is that settlers who intend going in for cattle (and there are several) are. far better off with the game and the ticks than they will be with the ticks and no game. The game is now known scientifically to act as a great disinfecting reservoir, cleaning all ticks infested with East Coast fever which bite them. There will never be serious outbreaks of East Coast fever in country where there is game, but the experiences of cattle farmers in South Africa show what may happen when the game is gone. A few of the farmers here know and recognise this.
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Finally, I must say that I do not believe that the extermination of the game on the Athi plains and Machakos district will alone produce the hoped-for mil. lennium, for it is only one of many difficulties which have to be contended with, but it will no doubt help settlers in certain parts, who are able to go in for agri- Even culture. Already the game has decreased in these districts enormously. Mr. T. Deacon, who is the bitterest enemy of the game, told me that there is not one year every 50 head of game to be seen on the Athi plains now at any time of the that were there five years ago. Of all the settlers I have visited, none wished to entirely exterminate the game in the district, but only to reduce the hartebeest and zebra down to numbers which cannot damage fences and crops, and to prevent the country being overrun by game coming out of the Southern Reserve in the dry weather. This is a perfectly reasonable demand, and the next question is how the desired object can best be attained.
There appear to be three solutions to the problem, which I shall discuss separately.
(1) Throwing the Southern Reserve open to shooting. (2) Fencing north-east boundary of Southern Reserve. (3) Fencing the boundaries of the individual farms.
1.-THROWING THE SOUTHern Reserve OPEN TO SHOOTING.
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The only industry which the Southern Reserve offers any attractions for, so far as we can see at present, is ostrich farming, but here again the lack of water is a serious problem, for even ostrich farmers, when their stock of birds increases, must grow food for them, which the lack of water would make almost impossible. It is not improbable that in the future the Southern Reserve will be the only place where new blood in the form of wild birds will be obtainable for ostrich farmers, and there is If the Southern Reserve no reason why this should not be turned to good account. were thrown open to shooting, Safari parties will flock thither, but for what purpose? To shoot the giraffe, the rhinoceros, the oryx callotis, the wildebeest, the gerenuk, the few roan antelope, and greater kudu, the eland, the lesser kudu, and the gazelles, in fact all the rarer and harmless species which never leave the reserve, and which everyone is anxious to preserve. But to expect that they will expend much time and thousands of rounds of ammunition in killing off the herds of zebra and hartebeest for the benefit of the farmers outside, is to expect that which is so improbable that it amounts to an impossibility. The few secluded spots in the reserve, where water and grass exist during the dry weather and around which great numbers of game congregate and remain, would be disturbed, and still greater numbers of zebra and hartebeest would be driven out on to the Athi plains.
Throwing open the Southern Reserve to shooting alone will not help the settlers outside for very many years; it would be necessary also to engage a staff of men, and make a clean sweep of practically all the zebra and hartebeest in the reserve and outside on the Athi plains, which would amount to slaughtering more than double the quantity of game which is necessary. The Southern Reserve has acquired an evil reputation which it does not really deserve. To its presence is attributed ull