DRAININU WITH DYNAMITE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1439, 14 May 1912, Page 8

DRAININU WITH DYNAMITE.

, EXPERIMENTS IN WESTLAND. The use of dvnamite or some similar explosive for 'cultivating-and-draining the ground has teen talked of a good deal m America, and, under some conditions* the system certainly appears to have suc-ceeded-A representative of, the Christchurch "Press" learned from a- West Coast resident, recently, that the New Zealand Department of Agriculture has been carrying out experiments with explosiTes on the notorious Pakihi soils of Westland, with a view, to inducing drainage in these waterlogged areas. This Pakihi" soil covers an area estimated to be over 100,000 acres, and up to the present it has been found impossible to do very much with the land, which is chiefly Crown land. "Pakihi" is a, Mann ord «i"uifying on opening or clearing free from "forest, which-describes the appearance of tho locality fairly well. The land consists of sour, swampy terraces which support merely such undesirable vegetation as rushes fern, moss, and plants usuallv associated with water-logged ground, and a« mav be imagined, it is practically usele~«. either for growing crops or carrying stock. Mr. B. C. Aston, tho .Department s agricultural chemist, in describing this area of country, expresses the opinion that the land conld be, easily drained, but so far it has not proved so easy as w;as imagined. The top soil is retentive and closely packed, and overlies saud and a boulder or cement bottom.. Also iron pan is frequently met with at a depth of two to' three feet. On? or two attempts to burn off the rushes and sow grnss seed have proved disappointing, but on the drier portions danthonia occurs, though clovers will not thrive. The iron-pan mentioned abovo is impermeablo to water, ami no hope of succcssfnl drniuofjo operations could be held out unless this pan was broken up permanently. . -- Apparently it was witli this object in view that the dynamiting experiments have been" carried "out by the Agricultural Department, though, as the officials of the Department have to conform to the policy of sOrrec'v imposed upon t hem by the Minister'for Agriculture full details of the I'o.-ults are not available. I lie informant of the "1W states that some members of the Department recently made a journey over to a. place about four miles from flokitikn, with a view to carrying out tho blasting operations. A line of country was marked out. and small holes bored at short intervals apart. I'lugs of explosive were placed :it the bottom ot each' of the borings. The charges were lirpd simultaneously. The combined discharge of such a large quantity of ex-nlo-ive resulted in a considerable disruption of the top soil, but it is beloved that the consistency and tenaciousness of the .'iron-Ban, which was particularly bad m

this locality, Tory successfully resisted the effects of the dynamite. Tlio actual success, or otherwise,' of these experiments will not bo known until the official report is published.