IRRIGATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23335, 29 October 1937, Page 7

IRRIGATION

THE ASHBURTON COUNTY REMARKABLE POSSIBILITIES BIG PROGRAMME IN HAND (Per United Press Association) ASHBURTON, Oct. 28. Firm belief in the remarkable possibilities of. irrigation in New Zealand and particularly in the Ashburton County were expressed by the Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) in an address when inspecting the mid-Canterbury irrigation scheme, which will cost £1,000,000. He instanced its success in Australia, where production had increased three or four-fold. About two-thirds of the work in respect to 600,000 acres lending themselves to irrigation' in the county had been surveyed. The cost would be about £6 per acre compared with £23 in Central Otago. He had been cursed and blasted by bell, book and candle for putting machinery on the job. If the abuse of him ever stopped he would feel a lonely man. He did not give a— — for criticism. Only when a man did wrong was it time to repent, and he had not so far needed to repent. It was better to increase the value of 1 the land under cultivation, the Minister concluded, than to put people on new land to carve out new farms.

The scheme is divided into five sections, one /serving over 200,000 acres, at an approximate cost of 13s arj acre. Another section comprises 32,000 acres at a total cost of £192,000. The average over the county was thus a little under £7 an acre. The largest work provides conditions for generating 25,000 hdrse-power if it is ever required.