PAKIHI LANDS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 44, 21 February 1930, Page 14

PAKIHI LANDS

TRY-OUT FOR DAIRYING

EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT

(From Our Own Correspondent). NELSON, 20th February. Professor Eastcrfleld, Director of the Cawthron Institute, has expressed him-' self greatly pleased with the decision

of tho Lands Development Board to

develop, on a farm scale., sufficient pakihi land to test the possibility of

opening up theso West Coast,, lands for dairy farming. The experimental work will bo carried out by the Department in co-operation with tho Cawthron Institute, so that the knowl-

edgo acquired on tho Fairdown plots may bo made uso of. The main points of the work are: (1) To get a sufficient area into grass to ascortain whether stock can be carred throughout tho whole year under ordinary farming conditions ;(2) whether the cost of bringing tho land into this condition will be' such as to allow the proposition to be regarded as economical. The cost bf all operations will bo most carefully Recorded and checked. Professor Easterfield said that experiments carried out by the'Cawthrou Institute on some 30 experimental plots between Sergeant's Ilill and Fairdown had yielded and would continue- to ' yield, a largo quantity of useful information which is needed in carrying out experiments on the farm scale. They had,-f or'instance, shown that by. suit? able treatment of tho land, without cither ploughing or draining, good stands of grass and legumes ( could be obtained within six months of coni-. meneing operations on the pakihi land. Stock placed on theso fields after the removal of tho hay aro at present doing well, and the sward is apparently all the better for their presence. Experiments on the farm scale are, howover, needed in order that the problem may bo studied.from the point of view of farm economics and such large scale experiments aro too costly , for tho Cawthron Institute to carry out. The experiments carried; out by the department of Agriculture would show very definitely whether-, it is practicable to bring large areas ot pakihi land into successful: dairy farms. * this can be effected the value to the West Coast and to the Takaka and Collingwood counties will be very great. The Cawthron experiments indicated further that with suitable treatment phormium tenas conH grow ™g°F°W on- the pakihi and he hoped that in the near future these experiments, also \vouia be extended on a commercial scale.: ;