IRRIGATION.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20918, 27 July 1933, Page 10

IRRIGATION.

COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME NOT FAVOURED. ADVOCATES 'FURTHER EXPERIMENT. The opinion that the time has not yet arrived for a comprehensive irrigation scheme to be undertaken or .formulated, but that the present trial areas should be extended with * view to the provision of further data is expressed by the Minister for Lands (the Hon. E. A. Ransom) in a letter to the Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P.). The Minister adds that the ability of settlers to meet maintenance charges, inseparable from a comprehensive irrigation schejne, will require careful consideration, as past experience of the collection of maintenance rates has •not been such as to encourage the Government to embark on further of a similar nature. The Minister's letter to the Mayor Is as follows: —

"With reference to your interview j «with me on May 13 last, I now wish to inform you that I have been in touch with the Commissioner of | Crown Lands, Christchurch, and j find that the position at present with regard to irrigation conditions in Canterbury is as follows: Seafield Experiments. "At Seafield my department, -with the financial assistance of the Land Development Board, and with engineering assistance from Lincoln j College, has developed with unem-1 ployed labour the area which you | .have visited. The department has there 22 acres under the border dyke system, 16 acres of which is sown in grass and six in lucerne. The grass was sown on December 24, 1932, and has been used for fattening lambs since February 10, 1933, with very satisfactory results. A control area (non-irrigated) was simultaneously sown with the same seeding for comparative purposes, and owing to the dry spell it was not possible to graze this area. _ The border dyke system was designed for a flow of three cusecs of water; the dyke checks being five chains long by 40 feet wide. "When not required for use on the border dyke plots, the water has been utilised by flooding under a crude border ditch system an area of approximately 100 acres adjoining. These paddocks were in poor brown top pasture, but they have stood up remarkably well during the last dry spell, a fair showing of alsyke and white clover coming away when watered. During the dry spellFebruary 1, 1933, to March 31, 1933 —a fifty-acre block (all that had been treated to that date) carried just more than five dry sheep an acre.

"Value in Certain Localities." "I agree with my commissioner's opinion that the experiment has not progressed sufficiently far to publish reliable data as to costs. The evidence definitely points, however, to the fact that it will pay certain localities to use water on part of the farms to assist in carrying stock through the dry months of the year. | From our experience so far at Sea- j field it seems that the border : dyke | method will prove too costly in its constructional costs to find favour on the bulk of our lands. The surface of our plain lands in Canterbury does not approach in level contour those areas in Central Otago and elsewhere where the borderdyke system is used. For that reason, and for the fact that a great deal of the irrigable country is light in quality, I think the cheaper flooding methods, although using some three times more water, will be the system most favoured. "During the coming summer the Seafield experiment will have its first full season under established conditions, and data therefrom will be more valuable and accurate. My officers are collaborating with the irrigation committee of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce and the Canterbury Progress League m running some dozen trial areas m different localities, about five of tohich should give useful data this next season. "I understand that my colleague, the Minister for Public Works, has made the services of his district engineer available to assist the Selwyn county and the Waimakariri and Ashley Water Board (Oxford and Eyre counties) in their considerations for increasing the water supply, so that certain irrigation areas can be developed.

"Careful Consideration Required." "As a result of my inspection of the Seafield area on July 14, I have .come to the conclusion that the time lias not yet arrived for a comprehensive scheme to be undertaken or formulated, but rather that the present series of trial areas be extended and great care taken to ensure that they are supervised by thoroughly competent officers. This •will enable worth-while results to 3oe obtained, and then, from data collected from the various localities (with their varying soil qualities ana conditions, we will be in a sound position to say whether a comprehensive scheme would justify the expense it would entail. "There is another aspect of the matter which will require careful consideration, and that is the ability of the settlers concerned to meet ■future maintenance charges, inseparable from a comprehensive scheme. A large sum of public money has already been spent in establishing irrigation schemes in the South Island, and the experience so far as concerns the collection or maintenance rates is not such as to encourage the Government to embark on undertakings of a similar aiature."