13. Mr. Vaneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is aware of the prohibitive expense of maintaining farm and woodland ditches by hand labour only; and what assistance he has given to the manufacturers of agricultural machinery to design a practical machine which can be driven by a normal tractor to lighten this work.
Mr. AmoryI fully appreciate the need to encourage the further development of suitable machines for the maintenance of farm and woodland ditches. My engineers have given advice to manufacturers, and I am informed that a number of machines, in various stages of development, show considerable promise.
Mr. VaneWill my right hon. Friend do what he can to encourage this work, because this is an extremely important gap in the whole range of agricultural and woodland machinery?
Mr. AmoryI entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. I think he will agree that the designing of a suitable machine is particularly difficult in the case of the hedge type of ditch, but my own engineers have prepared two prototype machines which are now under development, and the manufacturers have other prototypes under development. I hope very much that one or other will turn out to be a success.