A USEFUL PLANT FOR USELESS LANDS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 388, 23 May 1908, Page 4

A USEFUL PLANT FOR USELESS LANDS.

King Island Melllot.

Melilot. —This plant has been proved by botanists and agricultural experts as a nitrogenous plant of the highest order, able to grow on poor sandy wastes and rubbish ridden-country, and enrich it by the amount of nitrogen that it absorbs from the atmosphere and conveys to the soil. It is an annual plant and grows entirely from seed ; is a rapid grower and maintains itself easily. It is a member of the Clover family, and is used extensively on the Continent of Europe and in Great Britain, with other grasses, for the sweet meadow hay that is famous there. Like Anthoxanthum Odoratum for sweet-scented vernal) it imparts to the hay a sweetness that is greatly relished by cattle and sheep. We have not to go so far back to look for practical proof of its usefulness as a fodder plant, an improver of poor soil and fern and scrub exterminator. One only has to look at the history of King Island, Tasmania. The Director of Agriculture, Dr. Cherry, in defence of this (as he calls it) useful plant, in Melbourne Age, December. 20th, 1907, says:—“This plant was brought under my notice, growing on the sandy lands of Port Fairy and Wilson’s Promontory, and makes good fodder. Noting this, he states, he thought it would be a good fodder plant to grow where nothing else would exist. “ Where the Melilot was established in Victoria large quantities of hay, consisting of a mixture of oats and Melilot, were cut and sold at top market prices during the months of July, August and September. He instructed Departmental Supervisors to report on it. These men reported that cattle aud horses were very fond of it, and did extremely well on it, and that no unpleasant taint was noticeable in the butter. The Department had received no complaint from factory managers throughjcattle feeding on this herb. Wherever this plant appeared it proved to be a practical success. The history of King Island proves this. Twenty years ago it was a barren, rubbish-ridden waste, covered with a poisonous weed that killed cattle. Since the advent of Melilot it is one of the most prosperous grazing and dairying communities in the States, having a large butter factory, a ready market for their ■ butter, aud exporting the earliest fat and primest cattle on Tasmanian markets. Melilot is an early winter food there. It is also cut for hay. Its most valuable characteristic is that it exterminates bracken, fern, and scrub, and leaves the ground rich in nitrogen. The settlers sow it broadcast amongst the rubbish (ti-tree, scrub, and bracken), then put a fire over it; this cracks the hard husk of the seed and the ashes provide sufficient covering, also ensuring the early germination of the seed. If sown on cultivated lands with oats for hay or barley for winter green stuff, it is advisable to pour boiling water on the seed aud let it stand for two or three hours or over-night aud then sow. It is especially good for green manuring. This is how that is done on King Island : —Each year, as the Melilot dries off, a fire is put through it and continued till the scrub and ferns are nearly exterminated, then when the Melilot is about six inches high it is all turned in and oats planted on it. Any seed that should come up is cut with the hay and adds to its flavour, colour, and weight. It is only this last two years that King Island has had seed for sale, on account of local consumption. Even now stocks are limited, and intending sowers of this seed are asked to communicate with me as early as possible, especially for sowing for 1908. The correct time to sow is to catch the early autumnal rains, then you have a chance of a good winter pasture. Sow about rolbs to the acre. icwt is reckoned to sow about eight acres. There is no doubt that when Melilot is cultivated as its usefulness deserves, aud the price of seed permits, thousands of acres of* now useless, sandy, coastal, and rubbishridden country will be turned into profitable homes for our laudseeking people.