SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1894. IRRIGATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4736, 2 June 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1894. IRRIGATION.

Oxe of the subjects discussed by the Agricultural Conference at Wellington Ims been irrigation. Ten thousand men could be profitably employed to-morrow in the consti'uction of irrigation works, but in this Colony thero is littlo probability of any immediate development of this scientific method of enhancing the Taluo of land, In the first place irrigation is' ns yet but imperfectly understood ns a practical art, and while this is the case there is a risk of loss iu any undertaking of magnitude. To obviate this the Conference asks the Government , j appoint a Consulting Engineer for the Colony, and the selection of a competent authority of this kind would do away with at least one of the risks incidental to irrigation enterprise, Another drawback to the introduction of irrigation is the dispirited condition of private settlors and of local bodies, The Colony has been passing through changes of a radical character and is oxpoctcd to have to go through further vicissitudes, This is killing enterprise and as long as our political and eocial affairs are in a tumult men of means will not make improvements. Local bodies, too, are in a somewhat impoverished condition, and are mostly at the ond of their financial tether, so that is little or no encouragement for them to interest themselves in irrigation. Everybody knows that in America irrigation has been, ns Mr W. 0. Buchanan affirms from personal observation, wonderfully successful, and thai in many instances in Australia it has produced almost miraculous results, It is also admitted that ft is the one thing noedful to restore prosperity to Canterbury settlors, and to enhance Hie value of the Hawko's Bay district, Evon here, about Masterton, it would double tho productive power of a block of land like" the Upper Plain," and probably there is no part of the colony where effectivo irrigation works could be established at a loss oxpense.