Page 123
tupar
Page 123
Page 123
71
(d) it wasgepleted fhhost of the land in the Cegal Province would be easier to clear than the land in the other two Provinces, where the number of trees per acre was greater.
Rooting Difficulties at Kongwa
34. It had been expected that after the bush at Kongwa had been flattened by bulldozers, and the larger trees felled, heavy rooting machines towed behind the tractors could pull out the roots which were left in the ground to a suffi- cient depth for the planting of groundnuts. Unfortunately, the roots of the Kongwa thorn proved unduly obstinate, and presented a much more serious. problem than was anticipated, and it was found that heavy duty ploughs were required to cut the roots; at the time such ploughs were obtainable only from the U.S.A., and were in short supply. New machines and other appliances also had to be designed, tested and then re-designed in the light of experience. The technique of root ripping had to be reconsidered. And instead of the original cycle of bush flattening, windrowing and ripping, it became necessary to introduce these additional operations in order to leave. the ground ready for agricultural work:-
(i) Rootcutting with heavy disc ploughs which replaced ripping except at the height of the dry season, when it was found necessary,.. because of extreme soil compaction, to rip first as well;
(ii) root-raking, and
(iii) levelling which was necessitated by the uneven condition of the
ground after this sequence of operations.
A.
35. All the original estimates were based on the assumption that one acre of ground could be cleared for agricultural operations in under two tractor hours. Because conditions in Kongwa were more difficult than had been anticipated, and because it took time to train the machine operators, in actual fact, during the first year, it took eight hours to clear an acre. new technique had to be found and new experience had to be gained. And. in the light of all the difficulties and experience, it has indeed been possible to find new ways to make this work more efficient. But there is no doubt that for the early pioneering year of the Scheme the clearing problem at Kongwa proved far more serious than was anticipated. Africa had presented the pioneers with a problem which would only be solved in the hard school. of experience.
Tractor Difficulties
36. The Wakefield Mission in calculating that 150,000 acres could be cleared and planted in the first year had assumed that there would be an effective tractor force of 200 tractors, efficiently driven by skilled operators working 10 hours per day for a 6 day week. On their calculations, there- fore, from March, 1947, it was assumed that there would be deployed suffi- cient machines on clearing and cultivating operations to procure 12,000 operational hours per week. This target was unattainable because of the inevitable difficulties in securing enough machines and skilled personnel, and building up the necessary base facilities to ensure their effective deployment in the midst of virgin bush in East Africa, about eight thousand miles by sea from the United Kingdom, with all supplies coming through the small. congested port of Dar-es-Salaam, then 256 miles up the metre gauge single- track railway of the Tanganyika Central Railway, and then 35 miles north over inadequate roads. Faced with all the formidable difficulties on the spot, the average number of operational tractor hours achieved in any week in the first six months was only 1,710, less than one-sixth of the Mission's estimate. And not all the operational hours could be devoted to clearing