The Waste of Rich agricultural lan by Dredging.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 19

The Waste of Rich agricultural lan by Dredging.

TO THB EDITOR

Sir, — Your correspondent Mr James Rivers rightly points out the great benefit - the mining operations have been — and will yet be, — and we all agree with him that) land of little value except for mining should be so worked. But what we wish to save is the rich lands now being swept a\^ay. Youn other correspondent asks if I have ever seem the Waikaka in flood. My reply is that £ have, and I may add that I have also seen floods covering the rich lauds on the Inchclutha — to which the Waikaka flood was a mere circumstance. But that would be na justification for washing Inch-clutha intof the Pacific. He tells us that more gold is taken from Waikaka in one year than could be taken from the laud in 100 years by farming.. Granted, for argument, that his state* men£ is accepted as true. Is that a justification 9 Let us take what is now going on at Island Bloqk — that fine stretch of rich agricultural land many miles in extent. There is no richer land in any part of tha wcrld, and, if my information be correct, they are obtaining little more gold out of it than pays the cost of its destruction. Reference has been made to fruit-growings Island Block land ie in the very heart of tho best fruit-growing district in Otago. Twenty acres of that land in an orchard would now keep a family well. A, square mile of it— • with railway communication — would keep between 60 and 70 families in comfort; and even if " Not an Alarmist's " statement regarding Waikaka's gold productiveness were true in the case of Island Block, would that justify its destruction for all time; the absolute waste of laud so bountifully endowed by Nature for supplying food to man. Emphatically, no. What ie a hundred-years to all time? We have not too much good land in Central Otago. We hope to see our population increase. If it does so every acre of good land will be increasingly valus able. " Not an Alarmist " says Mr Seddon knows what he writes about. Mr Mackenzie has yet to learn. Perhaps so. Yet we s^« Mr Seddon enlarging on the value of annexing islands thousands of miles away from New Zealand, and telling us of the rich lands there. Yet there is not as much good land on all the Penhryn and Manaheke groups as is on the Island Block Estate ; and yet he will not lift his hand to stay the destruction, but tells us that a .man who holds the fee simple of his land can do what; he likes with it — even to sweeping it into the ocean. To make clear tho position, good agricultural land should be conserved, and other lands devoted to mining. — I am, etc., Thomas Mackenzie. Allen Grange, June 23. P.S. — One would infer from what " Not an Alarmist" writes that I was unaware of the great part played by gold mining in forcing ahead this colony. Surely one who was in Otago prioi to tho discovery of gold, and whose father was one of the first! miners on Gabrial's Gully and the Dunstan, should know the splendid work mining has been — and is — doing for this colony. — T. M.