To Cost a Million

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 30, 29 October 1937, Page 7

To Cost a Million

-Press Association.]

IRRIGATION SCHEMES Mr. Semple's Faith in Their Success

increasing production

(By, Telegraph-

^ ASHBURTON, Last Night, \ 'X flrm helief in the remarkable pos* Ubilities of irrigation in New Zealand and in Ashburton County partieularly, was expressed by Hon. R. Semple in an address when inspecting th© mid-Canter-bury irrigation schemej which will cost £1,000,000. He instanced the success in Australia, where production was increased three or fourfold. About two-thirds of the work in respect -to 600,000 acres lending themselves to irrigation in the county hag heen surveyed. The cost will be about £§ an acre/compared with £23 in Central Otago. He had been cursed and blasted by faell, hook and candle for putting machinery .on the job. If abuse of hjirv ever stopped he would feel lonely. He did not give a damn for eriticism. Only when a man did wrong was it time to repent, and he had not so far needed to repent. The Minister concluded that it was faetter to increase the value of the land under cultivation than to put people on to new land to carvo out new farms. The scheme is divided into five sections, one serving ■ over 200,000 acres at an approximate cost of 13s an acre, another 32,000 acres at a total cost of £192,000. The average over the county is thus a little under £7 an aCre. The largest work provides conditiojis for generatin-j 25,000 horsepower if ever required. ^