THE DESTRUCTION OF FARMING LAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25514, 19 April 1944, Page 3

THE DESTRUCTION OF FARMING LAND

Sir, —Some time ago the Daily Times printed the photograph of the dredge which is working the Lowburn, ana I have waited for some one to take up the subject of the ruination of our farming land. We have every reason to be proud of the productive capabilities of New Zealand but can we be proud of our treatment of the land we hold in trust for future generations? Wherever one goes in Central Otago there is stark evidence of past destruction caused through mining. Land which would have produced food for man and beast for all time is gone for ever. That top soil, the everlasting value of which we cannot compute, has been sluiced or dredged into the rivers, thence on to the sea. The dredges continue to operate, gold is wrested from the soil, and the rich river fiats, once a delight of beauty and fertility, have become cold, grey, unsightly, and useless pyramids of gravel. I know nothing of the value of gold or the use of gold, but I think this war has made everyone realise the value of golden wheat and, perhaps, the golden fleece. For these wc must have our fertile soil, not for the present only, for the land is ours only to use in our time. Surely we who. pride ourselves on our advanced methods of the care of our children want those children to inherit a land that has been similarly tended. New Zealand has been in our hands only 100 years. Can we view dispassionately the damage that has been done? Rabbits were imported, then gorse for them to play and hide in. Many are the noxious weeds that now infest our paddocks. Rabbits, perhaps, we can control, and weeds we hope one day to eradicate, but the soil—that life-giving top-soil, which has been fed to the ever voracious dredgecan never be replaced. Will our children and our children’s children be able to thing proudly of our stewardship or thank us for our loyalty to our “Good Earth? I am, etc., A Voice Crying in the Wilderness.