FOR SPRING FEED.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 447, 4 March 1909, Page 2

FOR SPRING FEED.

PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER CROPS, This is a time for deciding on whal ground is to bo devoted to crops for wintei and spring fend. Alost dairy fanners haw some land that can well bo spared for tliii purposo, and a turf turned under now wil givo results in the spring that will surelj bo welcomed. It is better to plough the land before rain than after it: the crops come heaviei and healthier. It is merely a question o ! horse-power and tho strength of the plough and dairy farmers, whose horses arc capable of heavy work, will bo wise to make no mon delay in the matter of breaking up tin ground. A good dressing of guano oi superphosphate harrowed in, will also returv its value many times over. Among the best crops that may now lie sown for feed purposes. are Capo barley dun oats, and vetches. Concerning vetches Professor W. Lowrio, recently of Lincoln College, whoso words will carry weight, said: —"Vetches deserve much more pro'■kninence than is given to the crop, and it is indeed difficult to account for its being so generally passed over. No doubt the risk of its persisting in the land through reseeding discounts it; it shells out readily, and the harvesting is often troublesome, while the yield is generally low in terms of other crops; and the cost of tho seed is often nearly prohibitive. But against these drawback's there are sufficient advantages in tho crop to justify well its more extensive cultivation. When sown in the autumn it will smother weeds, and help to clear land from annuals; it is one of the best forage crops grown, being hardy, bulky, and nutritious; it makes, when mixed with oats or barley, a valuable soiling crop, to be cut for feeding in tho spring; and when cut at the right time, and saved in good condition, it furnishes first-rate hay; when mixed with some cereal it affords excellent early spring feed to be grazed by ewes, and it may be sown in the early spring with rape, when it will offer, for early lambs at weaning ,time, a fattening forage mixture unsurpassed. Let there be added to these merits its value in adding fertility to the land, and the case for tho vetch is surply proven. There are few ways of recovering and improving tho fertility of tho soil more prompt, effective, and economical than growing vetches with a dressing of 2cwt. per acre or more of superphosphate or basic slag, according to the laud, and feeding tho croft on the land; and, as har, been indicated, for peas, the result on the soil will be greater if a few hundredweights of ground quicklime have been broadcasted as a preliminary. A heavy crop of vetches straight, however, hugs tho ground too closely, and for grazing it is better mixed with cereals, nuch as oats. Cape' barley, or giant rye corn. Such mixture will yield enormous quantities of feed when generously treated with manure. I believe there is a good case in favour of rape and vetches to be sown-in February, if tho season will allow, but the ordinary largo Scotch tare is, I think, in this case to be preferred to tho hairy or velvet vetch."