800 Barren Acres Become Potato Farm In A Month

Northern Advocate, 16 September 1941, Page 8

800 Barren Acres Become Potato Farm In A Month

Women are assisting in one of the biggest upland reclamation schemes ever undertaken in Britain. It is nearing completion—near Welshpool (Montgomery)—at a speed which has astonished farming experts. The speed is explained (says the London “News Chronicle”) by the fact that the ploughing has been done by big 54 h.p. caterpillar tractors, the largest of their kind in use on such a job. Ploughing began on May 18. Today more than 800 acres of furze and bracken, 1500 feet above sea level, have been transformed into a vast potato plantation. Planting finishes this week. The scheme has been planned and carried out by Montgomery War Agricultural Committee with the cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture and experts from the Universities of Wales and Oxford. Evacuees Help

Labour has been recruited from the universities, evacuees and pupils of an approved school. Women were among the 18 tractor drivers" who did the ploughing and they shared with the men in working long hours, often starting at 7 a.m. and carrying on until dusk at 11 p.m.. with halts for meals only. One, Miss Lloyd, ploughed 20 acres in a day. Youngest driver is 15-year-old Kenneth Carter, of Oxford Research Institute of Agricultural Engineering. About 120 planters a day have been | employed, among them girls bombed, out of home in Liverpool and Bristol, and evacuated wives of Army officers from London and Midland towns. Back To Grazing

Mr J. D. Griffiths, University College of Wales, said to a “News Chronicle” correspondent: “Next year’s crop will also be potatoes and the year following we expect to plant cereals. “If the emergency continues we shall go on planting cereals, and afterwards the land will go back to grazing. “It will be perfect grazing then, whereas only two months ago it was useless for any purpose.”

Appreciation for Ambulance As a mark of appreciation to the services given to hockey players by members of the St. John ambulance organisation, the Whangarei Hockey Association at its monthly meeting made a grant of £2/2/- to the women’s branch of the ambulance and £2/2/to the mens’ division.