THE WORLD OF IRRIGATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 187, 6 February 1912, Page 6

THE WORLD OF IRRIGATION.

AUSTRALIA OFFERS BEST PROSPECTS.

The South Australia Director of Irrigation and Reclamation (Mr. S. Mcintosh) has returned from an eight months' ' tour of the world, as commissioner for his Government in matters connected with his Department. His itinerary in- 1 eluded investigation into irrigation and 1 reclamation work on the Nile; and a Visit to the Soudan, , where it is proposed. | to irrigate 3,000,000 acres from the Nile. In Italy the intensely-cultivated lands | between Naples and Rome vipited. Here thousands of acrea' yield three - crops, fruit trees, vines and cereals | being closely planted together. The trees are 30ft apart, \yith vines planted in juxtaposition, and trellised on posts, and festooned oil the trees to a height of from 10ft to 15ft. Cereal crops, chiefly wheat and barley, are ' cultivated between the rows, and the wheat crops noted were estimated t'o return 30 bushels to the acre. In the neighborhood of Caserta and Capua the country is more fertile, with a rainfall averaging from 20 to 40 inches. No land was wasted by roads or hedges or homesteads. Tracks the width of a vehicle were'used for carting produce, and the husbandmeif live in villages grouped on the poorer lands. In Northern Italy, uotably at iFer. arra, Brescia, Milan, Turin and Monarp, some of the finest examples of irrigation work in the world were inspected.

Mr. Mcintosh went on through France, England, Holland, Germany, and Denmark. The general conditions and prosperity of the people in Denmark, he says, impressed him more favorably than those in any of the other countries 'he. visited. After touring Canada and the United States, lie attended the International Dry-farming Congress at Colorado Springs. While in California he met at Los Angeles Mr. George Chaffey, the head of the original firm of Messrs Chaffey Bros., who were the pioneers of irrigation at Renmark and Mildura in 1887. "Since his return to America in 1896," said Mr. Mcintosh, "Mr. Chaffey has engineered the reticulation of the great Imperial Valley in Lower California. At present he is working on the development of Whittier, Lower California, an irrigational project, which is one of the greatest noted in my travels. In that State citrus orchards in good districts bring between £4OO and £IOOO an acre, even though the water Tates range frost between £3 10s to £8 per acre each year."

Summarising his impressions, Mr. Mcintosh said:—"l did not see any country with such possibilities as exist here, nor did I meet people I could esteem higher than Australians. The prospects of irrigation along the Murray are brighter than in any other country. Land here is cheaper and equal to, if not better, than a lot of the land now being irrigated in other countries. It is quite possible that the soil of those countries was at first quite .as good as ours, but through frequent cropping and the failure to keep up fertility with manures a lot of it has greatly depreciated. In many parts drainage was faulty."