RUAKURA FARM.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 627, 13 December 1913, Page 6

RUAKURA FARM.

AMERICAN APPRECIATION. '"The Ruakura (.raining farm is conducted on admirable lines, and there is probi'.bly no other place in the world where the work is done with as much regard to practical value."' Such was the criticism made by Mr O'Neil Sevier, of New York, nn returning to Auckland from a visit to the farm last week. Uv Sevier has seen all the principal experimental farms in the United. States and Canada, and is in New Zealand as one of the com misaioners sent by the president to invite, the Australian States and New Zealand to be represented in the Panama-Pacific Epo?ition of 1915. Mr Sevier was particularly interested in the amazing production of alfalfa (or lucerne) at the farm. Similar crops could be obtained in America only on irrigated land, where the water was under direct control. As lucerne was the greatest forage crop in the world, the importance of the big production shown at Ruakura was apparent. Lucerne had been found to be better than cow peas or medium-red clover, and only one cutting could be got off cow peaa and two or three off red clover against eight or nine cuttings which were obtained of lucerne in New Zealand. This forage should be a factor of great value in the feeding of stock, particularly cattle and hogs. Mr Sevier commented on the fact that by the use of a fertiliser 100 bushels of oats were grown to the acre on the Ruakura farm. The yield per acre in the United States was only 30 bushels. He was strongly of opinion that every farmer's son should go to Ruakura or a similar farm for a period to learn scientific farming.