WASTE LANDS TO BE WORKED

Southland Times, Issue 23677, 28 November 1938, Page 6

WASTE LANDS TO BE WORKED

Modern Machinery For West Coast DEMONSTRATION NEXT FEBRUARY MR WEBB EXPLAINS AIMS OF GOVERNMENT (United Press Association) WESTPORT, November 27. “Modern machinery will be brought to the Buller district in February for the purpose of demonstrating the clearing and draining of at present unproductive land,” said the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) when he addressed a record gathering of farmers at a meeting of the Buller Farmers’ Union on Saturday night. Mr Webb emphasized the importance of the application of machinery in the clearing and draining of land. Something had to be done at once to increase production throughout New Zealand, he said, and, before production could be increased, more areas of ground had to be cleared and brought to a suitable point of productivity. There were thousands of acres of good land that only required work. Old methods of clearing the land were too slow. The 30 years that he had spent on the West Coast had convinced him that it took at least three generations to break in -the land. “The average farmer,” he said, “with old methods finds it a difficult task to keep the growth of blackberries and undergrowth in control, and, while doing that, has no extra time for more productive work. The modem child who sees older people still battling for an existence from the land loses heart, and leaves the land and seeks employment elsewhere.” WORK FOR MACHINES This state of affairs was entirely wrong, and, if machinery could alter the case, the time when machinery should be used had arrived. By modern methods it would be possible to clean, stump and plough four acres of ground a day. Mr Webb stated that he had seen the work that could be done with machinery during a recent tour he had made of the Gisborne district. Every particle of modern science was expressed in that drilling work, and there was no hard manual labour attached to it. It was all done by the giant plant. He had seen elsewhere a “bulldozer” clearing land of stumps, pushing 20-year-old trees out of the way as if they were straws. New Zealand was one of the finest countries in the world, and with the Government’s present scheme for developing the West Coast lands, lands which formerly lay waterlogged and covered with debris, would be brought to production. The Government could get the plant, but first an inspection must be made of the district in order to see if the land could be cleared economically. Mr Webb said that he had conferred with the Prime Minister (the Rt Hon. M. J. Savage) and the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) and discussed the plans. In February a demonstration would take place in the Buller district on three different types of soil. When the demonstration took place it would be a red-letter day for the Buller district and, indeed, for the whole of New Zealand. This would be the first time that such a demonstration had been made in Australia, New Zealand and, possibly, in the British Empire. “It is hoped,” said Mr Webb, “that the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, members of Parliament and representatives of all bodies throughout New Zealand will be present in the Buller district at the demonstration. The Government has distinct hopes that it can get machinery that will clear up the Buller and other parts of New Zealand in a minimum of time, an undertaking which under the old methods might take 100 years.”