COUNTRY COMPARED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 7 May 1925, Page 4

COUNTRY COMPARED

ALONG THE TWO ROUTES (By Telegraph.—Special to TH<* Mail.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 6. _ In his report dealing with the agricultural and pastoral possibilities ot the districts served by the rival routes to link up the South Island main trunk railway, 'Mr A. 11. Cockayne, director of the fields division of the Department

of Agricultures which in included in the Canterbury Progress League’s report on the railway question, gives some interesting information. The agricultural and pastoral potentialities of the country between Glenhope and Inangahua (the West Coast connection) he states are not great. It is mostly hard birch country, and extremely steep save for a limited area of moderately fertile river flats. A fair area of the land above the forest line may be classed as moderately good summer country lor sheep, but. the hill country soil is poor, difficult to break in, and liable except under very efficient management to revert to second growth. The fact that only 65 000 acres of forest both on the flats and hills have been converted into grass lands of the 240.000 acres occupied clearly indicates the < alusuitahihty ot much'of the country for such eou\fusion. . Railway communication might tend to greater breaking m oh the hill countrv than has hitherto been attempted, but only a limited area could he expected in the light of the present knowledge as to maintenance costs to nnv interest on cost of conversion from forest to grass. The country mu already brought into grass is ddheull. and .-.in fliiany cases impossible to permanently gw® an tH ' nnom,( ,j Thet river flats vary from excel cut to quite poor lamb The host- >s devoted to dairying. It. is not likely that i" s country will show any groat deve onment, railway or no railway, as hot! fertility and topography arc against a high 'productive yield per acre. Taking the Murchisop county as a whole at the present time it carries 46 cattle (of which 18 are dairy cows) and 163 sheep per 1000 acres ot occupied land. A very limited amount o cropping is all that can be done and that almost all in the. direction of p.oviding winter teed for stock.the East Coast the Katkoma County and the lower part of Aw at e u Countv would bo served by.tlie up of the Wharenui-l arnassus iadhe\lv'Cockavne says that the dominating features of the East Coast lambs are wide stretches of tussock and danthonia, natural grass land that has tost SStoi to pvoduco and wlwfcUKjg. not, of verv high carrying capacity, pi»vides excellent sheep country. Kaikoma county, , tor instance, has 400,000 ac of occupied land and fames 1° «auj cows and 400 sheen fcer 1000 acies Awatere county, with nearly 1,000,000 acres in occupation carries a little ovc 300 sheep to t'lie 1000 acres. In both counties the carrying capacity is reduced bv the large area ot mountainous country,'' but nevertheless it is far'am •twav greater than m Murchison Count\, where it is only on the country that has been grassed at great expense that stock can be run at alb In the Ka koura and Lower Awatere area considerable. development might bo expected to follow the construction of a railway both in the direction of the establishment ot many payable small holdings and in increasing the number of wet «.tock that could be carried on country at present too far out- of touch witn either finishing country or freezing wrks to allow of lambs being produced Mr Cnckavne's conclusions are that as ‘far as the'West- Coast area is concerned a slow development of certain of the easier bill country will take nlace but that the backwardness ot the works to allow of lambs being production of (land unfit for settlement than to the lack of a railway. On the East side, between Wharenui and 1 arnassus, a limited amount of good land not ye at the limit of its production is available The Hinterland of tins region, consisting of much rugged mountainous country, probably exhibits its maximum productive capacity when devoted to sheepfarming as at prcsen .