Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY. FEB, 23, 1917 EXPERIMENTAL WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY. FEB, 23, 1917 EXPERIMENTAL WORK.

The Agricultural Department is making a move at last m regard to experimental work on the West Coast. A farm has been long talked of and even long promised. In calling for offers of areas of 200 to 500 acres one won ■ ders how genuine the intentions of the Department might be. The minor area, even if acceptable, would involve a very large expenditure, and with Ministers talking of the shortage of funds, and busy practising economy in all branches, there is a difficulty in reconciling the expenditure with the existing conditions. Still, (he outlay on these farms is substantial every year, and other distriote are reaping an advantage from the expenditure, so perhaps the Coast should not begrudge the favor if it should actually come this way. This year, for instance, a vote of £5,000 waß* taken on the Estimates for Monmahaki, £B,OOO for Rnakura, £5,500 for Weraroa, £1,500 at AshbnrtoD, and £6,000 for other locations in the South Island. Out of the latter vote, presumably, will come the West Coast expenditure. Altogether upwards of £30,000 is devoted to the general working of experimental and instructional farms and seeing the development now taking place iu pastoral pursuits in Westland, it is quite time the Government lent a fostering hand to agricultural expansion in the district. A farm of the area indicated will take a very long time to materialise. To begin with, there is the choice of site and the soil to be dealt with. We do not know that the Department at this Btage should trouble about river-flats. These are readily taken up and readily used, There was the rush this week for the Waitangi areas as a case in point. But there are thousands of acres of terrace bush lands that wear a very unprofitable appearance after being denuded of the forest. Vith that class of land there is scope for much improvement, and the Government need not bother about calling for offers of encb lands, because these are tracts of Crown Lands they can have for the occupation. The fact that they are not alighting on the Crown Lands for this experimental work suggests that the Government are Dot in earnest, or else have not been folly informed of the position. All the better class land in Westland has now been taken up, but the Crown has a territorial estate that should be taken iD hand, and the people shown what might be done with it. Demonstrations of a practioal nature to such an end, up and down the Coast, would be preferable to fancy farming on a selected site where there were not the original nabnral difficulties to overcome. The Coast, as far as can be seen, is not likely to go in for cropping to any great extent. The variable and damp olimate precludes farming operations with any degree of certainty, but there will be great expansion in pastoral pursuits. This is the list essential requirement to be cat i < d for, and it should be the

aim of the Agricultural Department to foster it as mnch as possible, Th 9 many thousand acres of Crown lands adjacent to good roads now which do not carry stock in uny profitable quantity, are a fit proposition for the experts to tackle. The conditions up and down the Coast vary so, that separate demonstrations are necessary, and so we get the need for experimental plots rather than farms. The latter eould come later, growing oat of developments as they come to pass. We have got to remember that it is only lately the land has come into favor, and will only be as possibilities are demonstrated that legitimate occupation will follow. It can be understood that with railway connection with Canterbury and the inflow of a farming population, there wiU be a more intense search for land settlement. If at that juncture, by no means remote now, it can fc9 shown that Crown land now fallow can be turned to profitable advantage, settlement will ensue, and many areas now waste and idle lands will be turned into farms. Experimental work likely to achieve such a result is the kind of service moat needed now, and we would like to see that class of enterprise pnt in hand.