WASTE LAND ON WEST COAST

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22514, 23 September 1938, Page 6

WASTE LAND ON WEST COAST

CLEARING BY MODERN MACHINERY PLANNED SUCCESS OF EXPERIMENTS NEAR WESTPORT [From Our Own REEFTON, September 22. Thousands of acres oLstump covered waste lands in Westland and Buller will- be brought into production under a comprehensive land settlement scheme with which the Government intends soon to make a start. The Hon. P. C. Webb (Minister for Mines), in giving a summary of the proposals ,to "The Press” to-day, said the Public Wprks Department’s modern equipment would be made available for the huge undertaking, involving wholesale clearance of land, draining, fencing, and grassing, which would enable idle lands to be productive farms. The Minister said large areas of West Coast country which could be excellent land was covered with stumps, logs, and blackberries, making it impossible for individual farmers to clear in a lifetime; but with modem plant, such as the Government could bring to the West Coast, it was estimated that thousands of acres could be brought into productivity at an early date. ' Stumps and logs were to be found in abundance in ulaces where timber had been taken out. Those places had become a breeding ground for blackberry and- gorsc, and it was impossible to eradicate the weeds as long as stumps and Togs covered the country. The Minister said a start was planned with those Crown lands which were considered most suitable for Uevelopment. * The whole scheme, in ad-, dition to increasing the production of the West Coast, would enable prospective farmers to be farmers, not busb navvies, as they were now. Faklhi Lands The Minister to-day inspected, the pakihi lands development scheme .at Westport, where he saw the results achieved in three years of experimental work, which may lead to the bringing of a large area of the Buller district into production. Already 1000 acres have been treated and sown in grass, and a further 300 are to be sown next autumn. The Minister inspected a home built on this block for the supervisor of the experimental dairy farm, who said that on a 100-acre section, which had been in grass three years, 40 heifers brought there as calves had been reared, and 35 of them milked. Hay was harvested at three and a half tons to the acre, and on a block of 10 acres two crops of hay had been taken in one season. The experiment bad followed the experiments made by the Cawthron Institute some years ago. It so far led the Small Farms Board to believe that no difficulty would be found in supporting 40 cows to each 100 acres, with young stock to maintain the herd. Maintenance of the land required five hundredweight of lime and two of super each year, making maintenance costs £1 an acre, compared with £1 Iss for maintenance in the Waikato dairying districts. There is a sixroomed house on the property, with modern cowsheds, yards, milking machines, and a piggery for 27 pigs. It was hoped that it would be possible to run at least a pig to each cow. “This is undoubtedly the greatest experiment made in pakihi land in Zealand,’’ said the Minister. “If anticipations are realised, there must undoubtedly be a wonderful future for the Buller district. There are 40,000 acres. Qf pakihi waste, land within a radius of eight miles of Westport, and we hope eventually to see thriving dairy farms surrounding the town.”