IRRIGATION IN VICTORIA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3079, 9 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

IRRIGATION IN VICTORIA.

Mb Stdakt Murray, the Government, Engineer of Water Supply has, says a Melbourne writer, oust a bomb shell into the camp of the irrigationists. He has demonstrated in a few incisive sentences firstly that Mild urn, prosperous us it apparently is at present, only lives upon the expenditure of the money which its settlers took with them tance, in the five years of its existence it has produced nothing to sell; secondly that even at Nildura with the water at hand it costs 12s per acre yearly to pump a sufficient supply from the Murray without counting the first cost of the works and thirdly that the Government have already spent £400,000 or £1 12s for every aore o£ the entire area which the Goulbourn can be made to irrigate on the scheme for utilising the waters of that river and will have to expend at least as much more, while as every aero of the land is in private hands they are open to all sorts of pressure from tho-a who expect to get rid of the charge on their property.

Two considerations stand out clearly one is that irrigation at this rate will not pay for wheat growing. Even 12s per acre added to 15s per acre the annual interest ou the £1 per acre charged for the Mildura Wheat Lands would render wheat growing impossible. The outside expectation even from irrigated lands would not be more than 36 bushels to the acre that being the best return ever received on the Sacremento River in California where under an eternal summer the experiment has been tried on the largest scale and under the best conditions. Now the charge just mentioned means 9d per bushel added to the cost of ploughing, sowing, reaping, thrashiug and bagging which at the very lowest would, ou a crop of that size, come to £3 12s per acre or 2s a bushel more. Add freight to Melbourne and commiaiou aud chance of rust and see how much there is left even at the present high prices, whereas it is well known that farmers regard 3s per bushel as the nominal price. The other difficulty is the teudency people have to let laod lie unimproved for a rise in value in which case they do not expect to pay for water they do not use. The Government already find this difficulty ou the Goulbourn whence several deputations have come to grumble, at the whole irrigable area being made chargeable and the same trouble is felt at Mildura where 7000 acres out of the total sales of 17,000 are allowed to He uutouched. The owners have of course to pay the water charge under their agreements out they grumble confoundedly.