Wairarapa Farmer’s Faith In Tile Drains As Sound Investment

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 13, 16 January 1948, Page 8

Wairarapa Farmer’s Faith In Tile Drains As Sound Investment

Interesting arguments on the relative virtues of tile and mole draining on clay country which could be mole-drained, are contained in correspondence which has recently passed between Mr J. Carne Bidwell, of Pihautea, Featherston, and Mr A. W. Hudson, head of the Soils and Field Husbandry Department, of Massey Agricultural College, and responsible for the College’s Farm Drainage Advisory Service. In correspondence with Mr Hudson, Mr Bidwill has described his 30-year plan for the tile-drainage of 400 acres of his farm, which is on sloping country with a clay subsoil. He is convinced that, though the 400 acres could have been moledrained at perhaps one-twentieth of the immediate cost of excavation and tile-laying, the latter practice is the better investment, even at £26 an acre, because, says Mr Bidwill, there will be no repairs, replacements or depreciation for perhaps 1000 years, whereas mole drains require periodic renewal. This far-seeing Wairarapa farmer, who in addition to this drainage has carried out some very comprehensive lakeside reclamation' work, has laid each winter, at half-chain intervals, lines of tiles which, if placed end to end, would reach 100 miles. The drain outlets, which have been reduced to two or three to each 10 acres, are concreted to prevent their being damaged. Mr Bidwill agrees with Mr Hudson that tile-drainage is an investment for .which money should be more readily available from the recognised lending institutions of the country, and that if more tiles were laid there would be an enormous saving to farmers in the annual costs of clearing open drains, in addition to the increased carrying capacity of the land.