SWAMP LANDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16714, 21 April 1922, Page 5

SWAMP LANDS.

RECLAMATION OPERATIONS. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, April 20. The Hon I). H. Guthrie, Minister of Lands, who has just returned to Wellington from an inspection of swamp drainage works in the north, states that up to the present the Government has drained Howards of 300,000 acres of swamp. This area comprised some of the richest land in the Dominion, but up to the time that the drainage operations were undertaken, it was absolutely lying waste and for the most part covered with water. Since drainage work began this waste area has been brought into use and made exceedingly productive. The principal drainage areas ar® Hauraki Plains. Rnngitikn Plains, Waihi Swamp and Hikurangi Swamp. The last named comprises 23.000 acres. The Prime Minister and Mr Guthrie attended early in the present month tho ceremony of turning the first sod in connection with this drainage scheme. The Government has imported eighteen new dredges from America for swamp drainage purposes and they are all now at work. As work at present in hand is completed tho dredges will be transferred to other districts. There are 60.000 acres in tho Seaward Mos-s, Southland. and some 40.C00 acres in tho Poukawa Swamp. Ei-- drainage c.f these areas will bo tackled as dredges can be spared. There also arc numerous smaller swamps whose turn will come when the larger areas arc drained.