Farms THANKS TO NEPTUNE

Cue (NZERS), Issue 29, 15 August 1945, Page 31

Farms THANKS TO NEPTUNE

f~)N a warm, sunny morning in February, 1931, the business area of ’ Napier, New Zealand, rocked in the throes of one of the most violent earthquakes in the Dominion’s history. Whole blocks of buildings were laid low in a matter of a few seconds and great fires were started which completed the destruction. Hours later nothing was left of the town but an appalling heap of smouldering ruins. Nature has her own way of compensating for her caprices. Sometimes the compensation is munificent, sometimes it is small. In this case she tossed into the laps of the people of Napier a wide tract of land not previously on the map— after the manner of a mother who spanks her child and then hands it a jam tart to smooth its ruffled feelings. That was the area still known to Napier people by its original name of the Ahuriri Lagoon. Before 1931 graceful, white-sailed yachts, launches, motor boats and gaily-painted canoes rode the placid waters of the lagoon, which stretched away westwards from the boundary of Napier to the Poraite hills beyond. Then came 'the earthquake, thrusting the town and its environs an average of seven feet higher than it had been before and the shallow lagoon basin was left, literally speaking, high and dry. In the few convulsive seconds of

the (Upheaval an area of close on eight thousand acres had been added to the ’quake-torn face of the district. Not that Nature completed the reclamation of the lagoon was to be done later, by the hand of man,, when the possibilities of the new area impressed themselves on the Napier Harbour Board, to whom the unexpected legacy had fallen, and the Government, casting around for suitable unfertile lands to bring into profitable employment. Today crops sway in the sea breeze and sheep and cattle graze quietly on what fifteen years ago was ocean bed. Where pleasure craft once reigned supreme and weekend picnickers gathered in pleasant freedom from workaday cares, modern farming science has stepped in to develop and sweeten the soil of the former sea bed,, and to lay but farm lands which seem likely—for highly satisfactory results have already been achieved —to prove; the productivity of the area beyond question. ;Some day, possibly in a year or two, it will be broken up into farm holdings and offered to soldier .settlers under rehabilitation plans, but that, step will not be taken until the present developmental programme has been completed.

The breaking in of the lagoon lands has afforded an interesting study in farming experimentation. Leasing the lagoon from the Harbour Board at a peppercorn rental, the Government first attended to the task of completing its reclamation and drainage, for which purpose three hundred and fifty miles of drains were hollowed out, and a large pumping station installed. On the western border big stop-banks were thrown up, forming a catchment area against the hills to trap water running off the Poraite slopes and lead it down a main outfall channel to the sea. In order to wash the land free of the salt content it had accumulated during centuries beneath the sea artesian wells were bored to z assist the annual Napier district rainfall of twenty— inches or so, and these are now paying additional dividends by providing the necessary irrigation for the pasture and crop lands. Tests after 1 a few years showed’ that the salt content was steadily declining and that the soil was becoming sweeter and more fertile year by year. And so Government experts began experimental cropping. Oats, barley, lucerne and leguminous crops were tried; other areas were sown in grass. At first the results all through were by no means dazzling, but they were certainly encouraging, and the scope of the experimentation was accordingly broadened. In the meantime it had been found that asparagus thrived in the lagoon soils, and a sizeable area was laid out which is today producing asparagus of remarkable quality. Still

Later, when the grass lands had become sufficiently established, stock was in—gingerly at first, but in increasing numbers as the new pastures became more lush. Now they carry thousands of sheep, including a large flock of breeding ewes, and a substantial head’ of cattle. A small area has been put down, with satisfactory results, in fruit plantations, while miles of shelter belts planted to give the area the protection it needs are making strong progress. Wartime shortages in both manpower and fertilisers have hampered the whole experiment but have not halted it, and When conditions return to normal the project will be speeded up. As yet barely four thousand acres have been developed of the land enclosed by the stop-banks, but had it not been for the war it is reasonably certain that the whole of the five and a-half thousand acres embraced in the Government’s original scheme would by now have been developed. When the developmental phase has been completed' it is proposed to subdivide the lagoon into small holdings of up to fifty acres each, for opening up either as farms or as market gardens. Progress will be watched with interest in the next few years, during which the results of the experimental programme will become manifest. The day should not be far off when a new settlement will spring up of families gaining a livelihood from soil over which Neptune once held undisputed domain.