The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1939. DETERIORATED LANDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 39, 16 February 1939, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1939. DETERIORATED LANDS

yilE going otil ol use of large tracts of land is one of many warnings indicating that all is not well with New Zealand’s economy. The deterioration of farm lands is neither local nor sectional—it is a national problem. It is to be hoped that those who are now considering the problem, and particularly those who are organising the meeting of farmers at Makirikiri, will do their best to keep the problem open for the widest eondderation. The problem is complex, having national, local, economic and technical elements which should be examined by persons ef competence, for unless a very thorough examination of the problem be made, new errors will be piled upon existing mistakes. The situation, in its financial aspects, was revealed yesterday at the Conference of County Councils, when Mr. W. Morrison said that the general rates from the deteriorated areas in the Waitotara County were now £454, while the maintenance of roads cost £lOOO. Mr. Belton said that in the deteriorated areas in Pjitea County £214 was received in rates, but £BOO was spent annually in road maintenance. Mr. AV. A. Collins considered that in the Wanganui County from 8000 to 10,000 acres had seriously deteriorated, while Mr. P. Brown estimated that deteriorated land in Bitham County had fallen from probably £35,000 to £12.000.

The major difficulty which lies in the way of a solution being found, is superficial thinking. In suggesting that the Government should take the land over, no attempt, is made to deal with the intrinsic problem, which is: “How is high country land to be farmed profitably?” Obviously enough, there are two main phases which present, themselves for solution, namely costs and income. At the moment costs arc too high, and the income is too low, lint Io merely emphasise those two points is to be annoyingly platitudinous. The subject must be removed to the practical plane and kept there. New Zealand's national problem is how to utilise her soils to the greatest advantage. With the small population present in the Dominion, combined with geographical factors, the most profitable utilisation to-day is grass growing and its corollary, animal husbandry. New Zealand’s destiny to-day is to be a producer of food animals, namely, sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry, because the soil is available for the accomplishing of such production. Soils, however, vary in their composition and in their geophysical condition, and before a national policy can be formulated it will be necessary to know what kind of soil of the various kinds and characters are available for utilisation. In fine, the first constructive step to be taken in dealing with the deteriorated lands is to have a comprehensive soil survey completed of the Dominion as a whole, and particularly of those sections of the Dominion where deterioration is already in evidence. It may be objected that the completion of a soil survey would take too long, anefthat something must be done immediately to stop the rot. There may be sound reason supporting such a contention, and if there is, then an intermediate or temporary policy needs to be fashioned to assist the settlers on the back country land until the more fundamental treatment can be discovered and applied. But the intermediate policy should not be permitted to impede the inquiry into the foundations of the problem and the search for the long-range solution.

At the outset, however, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that high-country farming is confronted with problems peculiar to itself. While the general trend of farming operations on firstclass land tends to improve all the world over, the lands of marginal utility tend generally to go out of cultivation, and it is precisely this class to which the high-country land belongs. The trend of events justify the strenuous advocacy of Mr. AV. Glenn when, as member for Rangitikei, he urged the establishment of Alassey College on second-class lanci, so that this-now pressing prol lem could be studied. It will probably be small comfort to him to be able to say with justification, “I told you so! ” to those who decided the locus of Massey College, and it may be a vain regret that he was not heeded, but it makes its all the more desirable that the high-country problems be subjected to intensive study to-day in order to overtake the omissions of the past.