FARMING METHODS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 21, 7 June 1939, Page 8

FARMING METHODS

—o ENGLAND AND NEW ZEALAND ✓ ■ PASTURES COMPARED After viewing small peasant farms in parts of Europe and being taken back. I>3' the degradation of the lii° lived by these people, Mr E. Bruce Levy, director of the Grasslands Division, Plant Research Bureau, advocated when addressing the gathering of Young Farmers' Club members In Hastings this week, that New Zealand's aim should be to keep the l?.nd in sufficiently areas to allow men to make a reasonable living. He felt, indeed, that the future of New Zealn.nd was wrapped up in 'ts ability to* maintain reasonably 'arge holdings whe'e all modern aid> to developm" ll .!' could be used. Plant improvement, wlwc'h in Dominion was regarded as verv im•iortant to agricultural developments, ■vas a 1 so followed extensively in Gi'eat Britain < where the people were muci" 'dive to th ( > ne.-d for improvements m this direction. Among pictures deriet'ng wr> r k be \r>g carr'ed out at the AVo]m) Plant breeding Station, was one showing a 'ield of six year oh! llnwke's 15rv i'vlgrass, "which Air Levy stated w : ">s '■.ompeting most successfully wit'i 'tlie.r established pastures. One prie- * ire in England was to sow 2 to JJlbs if Timothy with the ryegrass crops idea being that the Timntlv. night help to hold up the ryegrass (Continued at foot of next column)

crop. He clitl not know whether thia would have much application in N?w Zealand. Among other tilings Mr Levy nndc a study of the systems employed in the drying of grass, but he told th e audience that he had formed the conclusion that the practice was too costly to warrant its adoption in ; -his Dominion. After dealing' with the manner in which fertility was maintained on English farms by residues go ng back into the land, he said that farmer-; at Home contended that once the colonies had passed the stage of virgin fertility the English farmers would once again come back into their own. Mr Levy declared however, that so long as New Zealanders could mt'int; 1 ,-n the high per acre concentrate o! stock on their lands they had no f°-i' as far as loss of fertility was concerned.