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Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume IV, Issue 7, 31 August 1857, Page 1

We are glad to learn that the advice given to our Maori friends in a former "Karere" to sow the abandoned cultivations and waste lands with grass seed, and thus possess themselves of good pastures for sheep, cattle, tind horses, has not been lost. We hear j that several of our Waikalo farmers are ' enquiring for seed for this purpose. We j hope to hear these enquiries become general, j The present, however, is not considered j by European farmers as the best season for ! sowing English grasses and clovers. The i months of March, April, and May, have 1 been proved to be the most favorable. The reason why this is not a good time to sow grass seed, on new land, is that the j young fern will spring up before the grass I has sufficiently grow n, and it will be choked ; ! whereas seed sown in the autumn will grow j so as to cover the ground with grass before the springand keep down the fern. It will, however, be wise to sow small ' patches of carefully-prepared ground now, in order to obtain seed for the autumn! I Any one may thus, at a small cost, supply ! himself and his neighbour with plenty of! grass seed, and save the time, labour, and j expense of going to the European settle- j nients to buy it. Let the young men read j this paper to the old men~ who have the !

care of the cultivations, and who cannot themselves read, and they will do what is required. Let a little good seed be procured for them, and they will take care that it is sown where it will produce the seed which will be required when the proper season conies. The following quotation from the New Zealand Almanac, published at Lyttelton, will show our readers the plan adopted by the European farmers in the Northern island:— " After the crop of potatoes has been dug, the ground is harrowed, the poiatoe tops and weeds are collected and burnt, the ashes are spread, the seed sown and harrowed in with two strokes of a light harrow, immediately after which it is rolled: within four months there is a considerable herbage on which sheep or young cattle are turned to graze, where they are kept until the end of September. They are then withdrawn for three months, and by the first of December there is a heavy sward of hay, and as soon as that is cut, made, and stacked, the field is again fit for turning cattle on until the following September, and so on for many consecutive years, the same alternation of grazing and hay-making following without intermission. Stubble land,to belaid down to permanent pasturage, is treated in a similar.manner, the chief difference being that the stubble is ploughed in before the seed is sown. Though hundreds of acres of the best pastures on the rich volcanic soils around Auckland merely had the fern burnt off, and the seed sown and harrowed into the bard -surface in which the spade or plough had never entered, yet the grass and clover started away with a rapidity of growth truly astonishing, at once subduing and superseding the fern, and becoming a most luxuriant pasture. The quantity and proportions of seed for an acre vary according to the fancy of the owner, though a very frequent allowance is— Paoey's perennial Rye Grass . 26 lbs. White Dutch Clover . . . o* 6 Cow Grass or perennial Bed" Clover « • n.i i Total • • •30 lbs. Others, who are desirous of having a permanent pasture, composed of a greater variety of grasses, sow of— Perennial Rve Grass . . , 10 Ibs. Italian Rye Grass , . . . o

Meadow Fescue 2 u Cocksfoot 2 " Sweet Vernal 1 " Timothy i " Meadow Foxtail i " Festuca Pratensis 2 " Avena Flavescens \ 11 Trefoil ami Lucerne • . .. . 2" Perennial Red Clover . . . 2 " White Clover- • ... . 4 " Total . . . 30 lbs. The foregoing varieties, carefully mixed, will form an excellent pasture on the generality of soils. According, however, as the land varies in character, the proportions may require to be altered, as some grasses may be suitable in some situations and detrimental in others." We must refer our Maori readers to their European friends for information respecting the grasses enumerated in the foregoing quotation, and will close our remarks with the hope that ere long our island will exchange its rough and dingy coat of fern for a soft dress of green sward; and that the old pig-rooted, overgrown cultivations, will be changed into pleasant meadows for the quietly-leeding sheep and useful cow. Grass seed may be procured in Auckland at the following rates: Rye Grass ... 9s. per bushel Trefoil .... 7s. " Trefoil (English) . 9J. per lb. Cocksfoot . . . 9d. " White Clover . from Is. to is. 2d.per lb.