PASTORAL LANDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4408, 6 May 1875, Page 2

PASTORAL LANDS.

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —Your issue of tlio 13th inst. contains a letter from Mr. C. Pharazyn, complaining that the return of land laid down in permanent artificial pasture is incorrect. He gives it as his opinion that the return should only be made of land that has been ploughed and regularly sown. I cannot altogether agree with Mr. Pharazyn. I maintain that where the forest has been felled, burnt off, and sown, pasture is [obtained quite equal to that on land that has been cultivated with the plough, supposing the land to-be of the same quality. If the bush is heavy it will cost more to produce the same result than by ploughing. In some instances it has not been necessary to fall the bush, especially on rich limestone country where, in a dry summer, the fire will pass through and destroy the bush without the cost of falling. A second fire through this bush leaves it comparatively clear. : I would ask why, if this land is properly sown (producing as good a sward as land that has been ploughed) it should not be returned? There stiU- remains the rich land covered with a dense growth of fern and scrub. If this land is fenced in small burnt, and regularly sown, by stocking heavily as the young fern appears above the ground, it can in a few years be brought under as good pasture as land that has been ploughed. I would ask why this should not be returned f Mr. Pharazyn perhaps imagines that it has been done at less cost than if it had been cultivatca by the plough. Supposing sttch to be the case, if equal results are obtained it is surely an advantage, and my experience shows me that where the land is not already covered with native grasses, and is of good quality, quite as good a sward can be obtained. I said I did not "altogether" agree with Mr. Pharazyn. I do not deny that it would be mistake to return land as laid down in artificial grasses where a few seeds have been scattered on poor ban-en soil that it would not pay to plough, and that it is doubtful if it pays to occupy at all. Mr. Pharazyn makes no reservation ; he takes it as a sina qua non that the land must bo ploughed.—l am, &0., ■\Viu.iam H. Beetham.