USE FOR CORSE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1933, Page 6

USE FOR CORSE

SUCCULENT FOOD FOR SHEEP.

(Per Pre s s Association, Copyright)

NELSON, November 14. ; . * The attributes of gorse on dry hill country which cannot be converted into good pasturage were strongly emphasised at a gathering of farmers addressed by Dr. Freeman, of the Nelson branch of the Department of Agriculture. Dr. Freeman said that gorse properly managed and controlled, would produce an abundance of succulent food on land which otherwise would he almost waste land. When poor native pastures were dormant and shrivelled, gorse . would provide large quantities of food. A farmer present informed Dr. Freeman that, since he had taken sheep off turnip breaks, some time ago, an area of about fifteen acres o?' gorse had carried no fewer than 60 ewes and 50 lambs, while the same land in its native rWTurage, the owner estimated, would carry only one sheep to each acre. Another farmed estimated that the land under gorse on his property would carry three times the number of sheep that it would if in native grass.

The farmer s also stated that tlie quality of the sheep and lambs, especially the latter, is excellent on gorse country.