DESTRUCTION OF SURVEY MARKS

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 79, Issue 5, 15 November 1949, Page 456

DESTRUCTION OF SURVEY MARKS

THE heavy cost thrown on the community by the constant removal of or the destruction of survey marks is causing concern to the Department of Lands and Survey and to the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors, of which all practising surveyors are members. It is vitally important both from a national viewpoint and in the interests of individual landholders that survey marks should be retained.

WORK done by practising surveyors W preceded all early settlement and the surveys and plans made continue to be required for an ever-increasing number of purposes. Surveys still precede the subdivision of either town lots or farms; still control all national development work: and, possibly most important, they still safeguard all titles to land. The New Zealand system of land marking has been very carefully built up over the years and today has a world-wide reputation. for accuracy. Every farmer or other land owner knows that the title to his land is guaranteed by the State, that all particulars of his boundaries are carefully recorded in the Department of Lands and Survey offices, and that, should any dispute arise, or his boundaries need redefinition, it is possible to have his corners marked out on the ground at any time. And not only marked, but reproduced in the right place. There is no guesswork about survey; the position of every survey mark is tabulated officially and recorded with reference to central fixed points— Auckland, . Mt. Eden; in the Manawatu, Mt. Stewart; and so on—and when a peg is re-established for any reason it is put back . to all practical intents and purposes in the same place it was in originally. < If one or more old marks have been destroyed or removed, the surveyor must find others, sufficient to check the accuracy of any' new ground marking. That is why a surveyor brought in to fix a point on one property sometimes has to spend hours searching for old

marks on another place, perhaps a mile down the road, which obviously leads to extra expense and often to considerable misunderstanding. Actually the extra, cost resulting f rom p e g destruction amounts to a very considerable annual loss, much of it unnecessary if a survey peg is move d a f a n ; the work of replacing the peg be difficult and expensive. The farmer who takes out a peg to place a post and then puts the peg back “in the same spot” would be better advised to leave it out of the ground; he would be far wiser not to move it in the first place, not just to please , surveyors but as a matter affecting him closely. There are few occasions when it is , essential to have a post in the exact position occupied by a survey peg and with a little care it is possible to place a post' very close to a peg without moving it. In any case there are many necessary survey marks which are not actual boundary corners. If there is risk of a plough, mower, or heavy cattle destroying a peg, it should be driven straight down deeper into the ground. ' The survey marks . in most genera i use are 3h / x in. or 2Jin. x 2Jin. f o f ara pegs 21in. long, or lih diameter i ra P f k g e S s or g a lvanised-iron tubes 4in. long. In rural areas particularly, many prominent hill tops have trigonometrical stations on them, generally made of iron tubes up to 3in. in diameter. These are part of the original framework of the. whole survey system and are most important,