TIMID FARMERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11558, 20 April 1898, Page 4

TIMID FARMERS.

Ip the gentleman who complained in our correspondence columns the other day of the delay in instituting some comprehensive system of irrigation will read the report of the last meeting of the committee of the Ellesmere Agricultural and Pastoral Association, he will find some excuse for the apparent dilatoriness of the local bodies. While practical farmers who have seen the disastrous effects of a prolonged drought talk of water impoverishing their land, and object to any general scheme that would involve the payment of rates, it is little wonder that the authorities are disposed to take their own time to consider the various proposals. It seems, we confess, almost incredible that men who have watched the destruction of thousands of acres of grass and grain during the past four or five months through the absence of rain should still entertain any doubt about the value of irrigation; but the report we publish this morning shows that more than one successful settler in the Ellesmere district is inclined to look upon the artificial application of water with the gravest suspicion. It is probable that they do not stand so much in need of irrigation as the farmers on the vast tract of country lying between the Rakaia and Rangitata Rivers,, and that the difficulties in the way are greater on the low-lying land than ott the plains; but if Mr Osborne and the other members of the committee who dwelt upon the disadvantages of an abundant supply of water will take the trouble to investigate any of the experiments that have been mentioned in these columns, they will discover that their fear that the cost of distribution would empty their pockets is just as groundless as the suggestion that the application of water would impoverish their land.