The South African Wattle Industry is located along the 3 to 4 thousand feet contour from the south of Natal to the Melmoth district in Zululand with an outlier around Piet Retief in the Eastern Transvaal. The total acreage under wattles is approximately 800,000 and the industry is served by nine extract factories. The main product is wattle bark tanning extract and the by-product is the timber which is used as mine-props, fencing poles and firewood and as a raw material for the production of A-cellulose, hardboards , paper pulp and flooring boards. As yet no use has been found for the thousands of tons of spent bark which must be promptly burned in the furnaces. Seeds of the wattle tree (Acacia Mearnsii) were brought from New South Wales in 1864 by John Van-derplank, a London merchant, and planted at Cam-perdown. At that time the wattles were valued as ornamental trees, shelter belts and a source of firewood. It was not until 1886 that samples of bark were sent to London for trial as a tanning material. The industry got off to a modest start but by 1904 14,000 tons of stick bark were exported and the area under wattles in Natal was 30,000 acres. It may be noted here that wattle bark is a good example of a storehouse of Nature since nearly 50% of its solid weight is tannin. The First World War boosted the industry and in 1916 an extract factory was erected in Pietermaritz-burg. Solid extract was then exported instead of bulky stick bark and in that year the export figure was 439 tons which stands in contrast with the 1964 tonnage of nearly 80 thousand. A very high demand for tanning materials was experienced after the Second World War but when supplies of leather substitutes appeared on the scene the demand for tannin suffered a fall which, happily, has since been halted, and now the position is stabili-sed. However, the erratic behaviour of the tanning extract market, along with the imposition of bark quotas prompted many wattle growers to diversify and acreages of eucalypts, pinetrees, phormium tenax and sugar cane were extended or introduced. Vegetation, Topography and Climate Before wattles were established the land was covered with veld grasses which are thought to be a fire-climax vegetation. The topography is rolling country with a tendency for the altitude to drop from 4 to 3 thousand …