LUCERNE GROWING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 663, 25 April 1914, Page 2

LUCERNE GROWING.

EXPERIMENTS. IN NEW ZEALAND. All over New Zealand the fields division of the Department of Agriculture is carrying oi?t a system cf experimental plots with the object of discovering what are the best crops for a particular locality and how best to grow them. The Department supplies the seed, its officers supervise the experiments, and the A. and P. Aesociations, at the invitation of the Department, render willing help. A South Wairarapa farmer, who is greatly interested in the subject, gave a press representative some interesting comments on the subject. In that district, it would appear, the chief desire of the small farmer especially has been the growing of lucerne —"The King of Fodders," ss he describes it. In that district there are about 40 plots, each of an acre in area, and though lucerne-growing is not the only ambition, it is recognised generally that the successful growing of that fodder would mean more to the small farmer than almost anything else. It has been tried on several occasion during the past few years generally, with, at the most, partial success; but under the experimented plots systam as supervised by the fields division, the problem has, apparently, bean almost solved. The Government the seed and the manures, and the inspector induces a farmer to devote an acre of his land for expsriraental purposes. Here is a concrete case. Some eighteen months ago lucerne was sown on a certain plot, but the crop was puor. Later, however, the roots had got down to the shingle, and at the end of a year nine tons of lucerne was taken off that one acre. That was merely the result of the procedure adopted —the growing in procession of barley, vetches, and peas, and ploughing them in, thus" putting the nitrogen into the soil, until the land had been properly prepared for the king circp;

That one experiment, not to speak of many others that could be quoted, had proved moat valuable; it not only proved the capacity of the land to grow lucerne, but waa an object-les-son in farming, and was greatly ap preciated by the farming community, many of whom had taken it to heart, and were doing likewise. Another point, ha remarked, was this: The State experimental farms were doubtless of very great value, but under the system of experimental plots neighbouring farmers had an object-lesson much nearer home and were saved the expsnse and trouble of long journeys, besides which tiie experiments were under the direct supervision of the inspector and the periodical supervision of a committee of the A. and P. Association. In another ten years, he predicted, there will be many hundreds of acres of lucerne growin the Wairarapa, and in any other parts of New Ze&lsnd, and the result will be of immense value to the farn mer, especially the small dairy farmer. The quality of the milk, particularly in the early part of the season, will be improved; the area taken up with growing fodder will be very considerably decreased, and the value of the land will be increased considerably.