TRAGEDY FOR FARMERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26416, 21 March 1947, Page 5

TRAGEDY FOR FARMERS

FERTILE LANDS RUINED LONDON, Mar. 19. From many parts of the flooded counties reports are reaching London of severe losses on all kinds of farms. A Reuter reporter who travelled in an army “ duck ” in areas near Erith and Over ooded by the Great Ouse states that thousands of gallons of water are still rushing through breaches in the river’s banks. Farm houses, barns, haystacks, and bungalows have been turned into islands. “ The Fen is a sea of destruction as far as I can see,” he writes, “ broken only by straw stacks, trees, and an odd building standing out from the water.” The reporter’s “ duck ” rescued a 56-year-old farmer, Mr Jack Burley, his son and daughter, who last night refused to leave their farm house, but to-day the water was 4ft deep in it. Burley said: “ I have been a farmer on this land for 36 years. This is the greatest tragedy I have known. My farm is a ruin.” The only possessions the Burleys were able to save were a few clothes, a crate of- eggs, and a cat.

The reporter says the flood’s disaster lies in the fact that thousands of acres of fertile land have been rendered useless, perhaps for years, and tons of potatoes and other vegetables and cattle food are now lying ruined under several feet of. water. ,

The river Welland, in the Spalding area, is already above the highest level previously known, and is still rising. It flooded thousands of acres. Every farmer and farm worker in the area is mobilised to fight the flood, and hundreds of farm vehicles are carrying sandbags to stem the flow, but the floods are winning the grim fight. ,