THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 1, I924. IRRIGATION IN CENTRAL OTAGO.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19135, 1 April 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1924. IRRIGATION IN CENTRAL OTAGO.

The March issue of the Journal of the Now Zealand Agricultural Department contains the first instalment of a series of articles on the irrigation of the Central districts of Otago, contributed by two Government officers, who, in this preliminary introduction of their highly important theme, afford ample evidence of an able and careful study of the subject they have undertaken to treat. Incidentally, it is a pleasure to recognise tho generally high standard of usefulness and instruction which has long characterised this official publication. Under various successive Ministers of Agriculture it has steadily continued to supply to those engaged in rural interests of every kind information of a useful and practical order applicable to each of these industries, together with valuable and impartially stated tabulations of experimental results, whether successful or otherwise, attained from time to time on tho areas subjected to trial under departmental supervision. The Journal and its compilers are entitled to more generous recognition than perhaps they usually receive; and from the initial articles to which present reference is made it is already apparent that the numbers which are to contain tho contributions of Mr Tennant, the local Instructor in Agriculture, and Mr Marks, Resident Public Works Engineer at Alexandra, are not likely to suffer in interest and practical value by comparison with their prodecessors. Few subjects in the industrial sphere can bo of more vital interest to Otago than that of turning to profitable account tho wide areas of plain and valley which are interspersed in the Central with the rocky ridges and mountains that principally obtrude themselves upon the notice of the casual traveller. The combination of broken ranges, obviously suitable permanently for pastoral use only, with generous expanses of far more promising areas bearing painful evidence of an imperfect and 'inadequate system of handling, has long earned for Central Otago a reputation among observers from more favoured localities which must be frankly confessed to have been unenviable. It may be questioned whether even in Otago itself there has not existed, side by side with more far-seeing estimation, a considerable body of scepticism as to what the Minister of Public Works—a genuine friend of new developments, by the way—is fond of calling the “potentialities” of “the. Central.” It is fervently to be hoped—and, as the present scattered irrigation fields become more and more conspicuous from the steady extension of these enterprises, the hope strengthens in a welcome degree —that the time is not far

distant when there will be only one opinion in Otago on the absolute reality of these potentialities. It is to he hoped also that that opinion will be so unmistakably supported by obvious facts and figures that it must perforce be shared even by those who from the vantage of more immediately productive districts of tho dominion have been wont to assign an indefinite continuance to the admitted handicap under which these semi-arid areas (as the articles under notice designate them) have so

long suffered. As we have indicated, the article by Messrs Tennent and Marks in the March issue of the Journal i extends only to an introduction of their subject, and detailed comment on what promises to be a highly interesting series must naturally come later. There arc, however, ofte or two points to which attention, including perhaps the attention of the authors themselves, may already perhaps be usefully drawn. Information on the subject of cost has always boon scanty, and as far as the present instalment of these articles

goes, there is no indication that cost is going to be dealt with. Successive round-number votes from year to year do not tell much—they may be over or under-spent, or not spent at all—-and since the Government has not hesitated to avow its enthusiastic belief in the value of its irrigation enterprises, there seems to be no reason for any reticence as to the outlay involved in each. The settlers are expected to pay for the cost of the various schemes in the shape of annual levies on their farms, and some proof should be before them that their duos have been calculated on a just basis in each case. Another matter whicli should receive especial attention in future articles in the Journal is that of some provision for the systematic instruction of farmers in the use and disposal of the water supplied to them. The necessity itself of such instruction is emphatically recognised by the authors. “Although irrigation farming,” they say, “is older than any other kind of highly developed agriculture in the world, it is nevertheless a fact that tho average settler in New Zealand has had no experience in its practice. ... It is not generally

recognised that it takes as much capital and more agricultural skill to develop and bring into production an irrigated farm than is required to successfully farm in a humid district.” Tho doubt we venture to express is whether, however excellently directed to meet these conditions tho further explanations of the authors may prove to be, it is possible by the written word alone to effect everything that the conditions call for. Individual farms differ so essentially as regards levels, nature of soil, elevation, shelter, and so on, that individual instruction on the actual ground, in the great majority of casoa, will quite likely be sooner or later recognised as a necessary preliminary to the avoidance of wasted effort. No doubt there can bo much good done by such published instructions as the authors of the articles in the Journal of Agriculture propose to broadcast among the settlers generally; but tho kind of individual instruction that is certain to be called for can probably only be afforded by tho assignment of tho work to a thorough expert, or staff of exports, whose time could be almost exclusively devoted to personal instruction and periodical personal visitation. T here are schemes' on a large scale —it has been reported that the Minister of Public Works stated the aggregate cost to date recently at about £420,000 — and it will not do to risk their efficiency for the addition of a salary or two. There is, in fact, no clear reason why such a policy need odd materially to tho cost at all. A moderate daily charge for tho expert’s services, analogous to the fees paid for the annual inspection of machinery, would doubtless be cheerfully met by the farmers concerned.