IRRIGATION.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9947, 28 January 1898, Page 6

IRRIGATION.

As a practical illustration of the value of irrigation, our Ashburton correspondent has forwatded to this office two samples of green oats which he took from a ten acre field on Wednesday. Writing he,says:— On Wednesday evening I accepted an invitation from Mr J. Silcock to go and have a look at a ten acre field of oats he is harvesting, and which affords a striking and most convincing proof of the invaluable effects of irrigation. The paddock is situated at Allenton, a suburb of Ashburton, and abuts on the Canterbury Mills water race. The oats were sown about the middle of September, and though the land is good and well tilled, they were promising a miserably poor return, consequent on the long period of dry weather we have experienced. Late in December Mr Silcock turned some of the spare water from the mill dam over such portions of the paddock as could be easily irrigated, with the result that on the irrigated portions of the paddock he is harvesting a crop of oats varying from four to over five feet in length of straw and well headed, while on the unirrigated portions the oats are miserably thin and only from twelve to eighteen inches high. Further, two seasons ago the unirrigated portion was well tilled and sown down to mangoldß. These failed, and then the land was heavily top dressed with farmyard manure, ploughed, and allowed to lie fallow, while a good crop of wheat was taken off the other part of the field. When the whole paddock was sown in oats last September it was also laid down with 81bs of clover to the acre. At the present time where the oats are standing 4ft and over sft high, there is also a splendid crop of succulent clover, standing well above a tall man's knees ; while on the unirrigated parts there is not a vestige of clover, or as much as a decently vigorous plant of fathen. The land all over the paddock is of uniform good quality, and this little patch of ground is a most valuable object lesson of the great value of irrigation. At a meeting of Coldstream road district ratepayers, held at Hinds yesterday afternoon, resolutions were unanimously carried in favour of declaring the district a special district for irrigation purposes. I -_