VALUABLE WATER SOURCES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 121, 25 February 1926, Page 6

VALUABLE WATER SOURCES.

FOR AGRICULTURE AND POWER. The value of this Dominion’s excellent water supplies is stressed in the Official Year Book :—- “An important commercial aspect of our rivers is their use not only as drainage channels, but as a source of water for pastoral purposes. Hardly any area is without water for stock or with a subsoil wanting in moisture necessary for successful cultivation. Only in Central Otago and on the Canterbury Plains were there formerly wide stretches of arid country, but the deficiency in the water-supply has been remedied by well-engineered systems of races, tapping unfailing streams at high levels, and distributing a portion of their contents far and wide, so that the districts mentioned are rendered highly productive and absolutely protected from the serious effects of drought. It is, however, the rich alluvial flats and welldrained terrace lands bordering on the rivers that contribute specially to the high average yield per acre year after year for which this country has such a wide-world reputation.

“ From the brief summary given above it will be evident also that the country possesses enormous stores of energy awaiting exploitation. A beginning has been made in some places such as at Waipori in Otago, at Lake Coleridge in Canterbury, at the Horahora falls and at Arapuni on the Wai-'

kato river in Auckland, at Mangahao in Wellington province, and at a few other places where there are minor installations. These owe their development to their comparative 'nearness to centres of industry; but they represent an infinitesimal portion of the energy available, and the value of our vast store will be more truly appreciated when our somewhat limited reserves of coal show signs of failure or become difficult to work unless, indeed, some new form of power is disclosed by the researches of science in the near future.”