A QUERY AS TO VETCHES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1368, 20 February 1912, Page 8

A QUERY AS TO VETCHES.

CULTIVATION FOR. WINTER FEED?

A correspondent, Mr. _S. Hull, writing, from "The Wigwam," Wakeßeld, Nelson, asks for any details and results regardinggrowing vetches for lambs and sheep for winter feed. As "for instance, mode of cultivation, manuring, results on a light stor.ey soil, and feeding value. The vetch is 7iot. a crop that has been, grown, to any very great extent in the Dominion, although in Canterbury a certain area b|is been grown, chielly for harvesting and threshing. The straw is fed to stock. Tho vetch ripens as do peas and can hardly be expected to lend itself to winter feeding. At all events we know of no trials, In Australia the pea has been used for autumn feeding of stock and this would mean that the crop would be sown as late as possible in the spring or early in summer, and be allowed to remain'in a dried state on the ground. The Australian climate may lend itself to such feeding to greater advantage than the New Zealand climate. There is no New Zealand experience as a guide to answering the above query, but the suggestion is made that to settle the question, a small area, say, one acre or even less, might be grown for testing purposes.