GRASS-SEEDING.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1664, 3 February 1913, Page 8

GRASS-SEEDING.

SOMETHING ABOUT CROPS,

The grass-seed harvest is now in full swing and .reports from various quarters indicate that' the seed is generally of very good . quality this season. During the course of a conversation.with a Palmerston North' merchant, who has his finger on the pulse of the* grass-sefd trade throughout New Zealand, a representative of The Dominion was informed that the Sandon rye crop would be muclr less this season than last. Last year tho seed was very light and generally unsatisfactory; so muoli so that many growers have not grown any this year. Another factor which deterred growers was the bad weather this season which brought up a lot of rubbish with. the grass. The-rye that is being harvested in' Sandon at present, however, is. rep'orted to Wof excellent quality; — on tho whole, probably the best tho district has ever .produced. It will probably run something like 30-to 321b. to the bushel. : • '

Some of tlie foremost Sandon growers have had trouble of late, years in Retting their seed threshed, and as a result more than one farmer is reported to 1 have imported small threshing plants so as to be independent of outside aid., In one. case the importer rcckons his; venture will savo him a' clear <£200 this season.. Whore ho had previously been paying away about .£250 for threshing, labour, fete., he estimates this . season to get through' for a shads over £49. Another change in tho harvesting operations, at Sandon is tho displacing of tho old system of carting the sheaves into, the machine by a system of sledging.- The result is a minimum of handling and a great decrease in the- amount of seed shaken out and lost.

As for as Snndon is concerned, crested dogstail, which has previously been grown extensively, has been pretty mucfi left alone this year, arid there will be a bis shortage in the district output. Most of the merchants, however, are still holding big stocks cf this seed from last year.

\ The cocksfoot coming in is reported to ho of very good quality, and in spite of labour troubles, tho southern cocksfoot crop will probably be a record one. ; - According to the authority under review practically no prairie gras3 is being handled in Palraerston this year and no tall fescue is being cut. as there Ss no market for it. Meadow fescue is so clienri at Home at present, that buyers will not look at tall fescue, and where thousands of sacks of .the latter were handled last year, there will only be hundreds this season.

While on the question of grass-seed it is interesting to noto.thcT.beginnine and growth of the cocksfoot industry on Banks Peninsula which, by the way, a northern farmer holds, will bo a steadily-decreas-ing trade henceforth, owing to the advance which dairying is making, and the labour difficulty. v ■ Mr. Geo. Armstrong is credited by a southern writer with being 'the ..'first known person to have introduced cocksfoot on tho Peninsula. Somewhere about 1860 Mr. Armstrong was running a boat to Wellington, and he purchased a few bags of. cocksfoot here to try as a pasture grass. He sowed some of it at Grelian Volley and the balance in n paddock below Mount Vernon. . Attracted by the seed, neighbours used to cut off the seed-heads with knives, rubbing' the seed out when they got' home. Tho success of the gra*s was quickly noted and its fnmo spread rapidly.. It is stated that'tho first to .grow seed for sale was a Frenchman named Charles Lommonier, who cultivated li ton-acre patch in Greta .Valley. Tho, price is reported to have'been about Is. 3d. -per lb. As time went on, however, moro people grew-.the seed and the price came down, until, in 1870, its market value was 9d. per lb. There is no official reoord of the Peninsula edeks,foot crops nnt.il 1885, when 50.829 sacks were .harvested, and no official price is liven until .1831, when 35,953 sacks were nnrrr>sted_ at from 42d. to sjd. per lb. The heaviest crop'harvested was in 1906, when 87,W2 sacks were got in at from to . Gd. per lb. The smallest crop harvested since 1885.was in 1911. when only 35,383 sacks were procured. On this occasion the drought forced farmers to .turn their cattle into the paddocks.