West Coast Farmers’ Lime Producing Co., Ltd.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 July 1924, Page 4

West Coast Farmers’ Lime Producing Co., Ltd.

SKRKTARY’S REPORT

1 desire to acknowledge the courtesy of the Alinister of Agriculture in supplying me with information of various lime works in Canterbury and Otago. I left the Const pit June 3rd. and returned oil the 28 1 h. after gathering some very useful informalimi for our Company. A full report will he submitted to a meeting of Directors called for Saturday. July 12th. next at Boss.

The 11 on Anderson when visiting the .Bos- works said that you did not need to educate the Earmm’s on the other side as to the value of liming their land and I found thL to ho perfectly true. At one of tbe lime works even the refuse of lime in a dump' of hundreds of tons had just been sold to one nf the large farmer., in the vicinity.

The most striking feature for this time of the year was the largo percentage of orders for carbonate of lime which 1 found in every case mis sold tit the same price as Ross carbonate, via. “2s (id pet ton. The largest Inne works visited had lour kilns going, another had only one kiln lit. the balance were all working the raw stone—carbonate. One could not help untieing the different- quality of stone ttoaled, and f.nw the best quality u:t- alwav.- picked out to l»e burnt for building lime, the next for agricultural and lho last for carhniiatc. The color is quite different, in many eases it had it brown and red streak in il before burning, and after going through the lire some came out min It lighter in color. One of the quarries visited had a beaut il till;.' white stone exposed, and I was told that it was hewn into blocks and sent away to Auckland for a new building. The men engaged on this job were driving steel wedges only a few inches apart along :t crevice in the reek, which resulted in a block probably of o(l tons splitting otr which in turn was reduced to the required size. The compressed air <lrill was seen in operation in another quarry. and I wondered tv Inti the Alaoris would have thought ol this invention 11:9 years ago when they fere .hurtling or digging out- l-botr war canoes.

The vi'iy finest exhibit ol limestone that I saw was hundred' oi’ feet above sea level, collipu-ed entirely of •cashclls of various dc.-criptioiis. hut packet 1 closely together. This is ul -o I rue of many oi the lolls around Ross, .von ran g»> no various mountain tracks here, and after taking ttwav the moss grown sandstone, in many cutting-' ulon g the track you will find sen shell' iu profit-ion. AA’e also have a mountain of limestone 9-1 p-er cent. to 98 tier cent, calcium content, which will last -o long that, we w ill not need Sir Francis Bell to draft regulations stu b its ho has d me in the Forestry Bill. »Ae..: ( a-t Farmers have lime at their doors (or carried free 109 miles by rail) second to none in New Zealand lor qualify.

Every progressive AAe-l (’oast lartner should drain and lime his land, even half :t ton of lime and two hundredweight of superphosphates to the acre will prove beneficial, it yott cannot afford any more, thus helping to make AYestbind a second Taranaki.