SOIL SURVEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 264, 6 November 1937, Page 10

SOIL SURVEY.

NORTH AUCKLAND WORK. BASIS FOR DEVELOPMENT. .(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WHANCAREI, this day. '"The soil survey which is being carried out in the North Auckland district ie one of the way* in which the Government is attempting to form a basis upon which sound scientific development may take place," said the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, at the opening of the new county chambers at Whangarei to-day. "A good deal of the area has been covered already by officers of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the information which has emerged will be of extreme value in determining further developmental quality," Mr. Parry explained. "There is little doubt that throughout New Zealand, and perhaps particularly in Northland, there hae been a considerable devclopm°it of uneconomic land in the pa«t. It is not the intention of the Government that tliia information should be .collected and merely filed in the official pigeon holes which have in the pas; so often been the final resting-place of the results of excellent scientific work. It is deeired that the result* of this work should be made available to and used for the ?>encfit of -he people. "After all. it is only when we know just what the soil will support and exactly what the soil consists of that we c*n effectively plaa for its satisfactory utilisation. Tho climate? of Northland needs no pratae from me, but this it; only one factor in the process of extracting from the land those product* which Nature will give us. "The soil is, of course, basic. It is not only that we wish to know where to place men. It is obvious that the future development of transport facilities and other public utility can be economic only when we know the facts of the situation."