THE HIKURANGI SWAMP.

Northern Advocate, 21 March 1931, Page 3

THE HIKURANGI SWAMP.

To the Editor. Sir,—A letter appears in Wednesday’s issue of your paper from “Swamp Hen,” in which the writer indulges in rather caustic criticisms of some of tho speakers at the meeting ■hold in the Jordan School on Monday night to discuss the drainage of tlm above. He .says that the settlers there who state that they could nof pay 32/- per acre per annum out of their land- make him astounded and he proceeds to state that the lands are now drained, they have little fear of floods, and when they are simply' fattening on the. Government work which has cost some quarter of a million, wc find 40 mou meeting together and largely talking rubbish. This statement, sir, is both inaccurate and insulting.. I slated that I could not pay 12/- per acre drainage rate on my property, and why should I do so? I say positively that the portion of my land which is liable to flood has derived no benefit from the operations of Hie drainage scheme, and that the drainage which has increased its productiveness has beeTT'done entirely at my cost. Of course, McLeod’s Flat and Hikurahgi have benefited by the work carried out

at those places, ' Who can deny if? Who wishes to do so? In a letter which appeared u your paper on July 13, 1930, I made this statement: —“One stream which crossed the main road at McLeod’s Flat, Hikurangi, and one which comes through Hikurangi Town, both of which flooded after heavy rains, have been so enlarged, straightened, etc,, as effectively to prevent any further trouble as far as they are concerned. ” The writer states that he knows the Jordan Flats well as lie lived for six years in the district that he has known floods to lie for weeks on the land, and now it is a long time since he has noticed it lie for three days. Whore was he last May? Curing that month the road between Hikurangi and Jordan was blocked to motor traffic for a week owing to its being flooded. The reason that floods have boon so few during the last two years is that the rainfall has been so small. If we had 48 hours rain from the northeast, such as we used to have a few years ago the flood would be just about the same as it used to be with a similar rainfall twenty years ago. The statement which appeared in your paper recently, that owing to drainage operations, floods which would have stayed on the land at one time for three weeks, now are gone in three days is absolute nonsense. How can the water get away? The cuts put in are, many of them, rendered useless by slips etc. I now invite any of the following farmers, all of whom are in the portion of the swamp in whicli' most of the work has been done, to state how many more stock they have fattened, or how much more butterfat they have produced as'the result of drainage done by the Lands Department, viz., Messrs A. .Christie, H, H. Ellis, F. G. Long, J. Earnshaw, R. McDonald, Grantham Bros. I could, of course, mention others, but the above-mentioned should suffice. Of course, sir, every settler in the district wants the scheme to be successful .and equally, of course,-no one is satisfied that it has been anything to write home about so far. “Swamp Hon” states that in Lancashire,'where lie comes from, the merest tenant farmer would be ashamed if he did' as little to the land as some of these farmers. How sad! Who’cl have thought it? What a pity that he should have left Lancashire. How j.t must miss him! It is certainly a long time since the first settlers came to this district, and possibly the improvements effected should be greater, but many of us have changed land which was formerly heavy kahikatea and raupo swamps into paddocks on which hundreds of dairy cows and fattening cattle are grazing, and it appears to mo to show colossal chock on the part of “Swamp Hen” or any other recent arrival from Homo to write the letter to which I have referred. When writing to your paper a few months ago, in reference to a correspondent who wrote over a nom de plume, I stated that X had neither time nor sympathy for the person, who would not attach his name to what ho wrote. While I still hold that opinion, I must admit that. I consider the nom de plume of “Swamp Hen” used by your correspondent to be rather appropriate. I have on various occasions hoard a person who had not much intelligence, referred lo as being as silly as a Pukeko, and I understand that a Pukeko and a “Swamp Hen,” if not the same bird, are at any rate closely related. Thanking you in anticipation, I am,'etc., F. ELLIOTT, Tanekaha, March 19 th, 1930.