PEAS FOR EXPORT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 8

PEAS FOR EXPORT.

Can peas be grown in New Zealand of asgood quality and as economically as is Tasmania? If so, there appears to be an unlimited demand for the grey pea known on the London market as the "partridge" pea. Manufacturers of all kinds of patent foods for etook and poultry are large buyers. The price would be 3s 6d to 4s per bushel, or thereabouts. The peas are also -r demand lor feeding pigeons. A crop of peas would be useful in a rotation of crops on a farm. - The other day an EngHsh agricultural paper said: — "The splendid feeding value of pea meal has led to its much- increased use in the preparation of condiments and prepared feeding stuffc A dairy cow ir> dairying districts cs.n hardly be said to be properly fed unless a pound or two of pea meal goes in th» daily ration. The meal may help to feed the fattening ox, and goes well with wJieaten meal, in the proportion of two parts of the former and one of - the latter, so iV may save the cake*, or" most of it. Again, -. peas' are not only . good for cattle food, but are excellent for wintering delicate lambs or tegs, at grass, if served with- about equal parts of oats. Ever the porker rejoices in food mixed with pea mteal, tod does justice to, it, too. No^hajrd.working 1 team belonging to - firms* in~' the cities and towns is now considered well fed without from two to four gallons of peas per week in their oats, especially if the members of the team are other than quite young ones. Then the poultry fatteners, who number thousands in and around Lon-

I don and BirmingJiain, very extensively use [ a meal largely composed of g-ney peas." ! In April last the New South Wales De- [ partment of Agriculture received a notifi- 1 j cation t.hat London, provision merchants . j would take two million 21b' fins of peas ' \ from ' that State every year if they were ' ; available. ' ■ -i Two years ago a Tasmanian firm received : ■ an order of from 700 to 1000 tons, but they I could onlj secure a limited quantity. That " firm roW the representative of a Tasmanian ! contemporary that they could place an unlimited quantity of grey peas, hacdthireshed, if they could be supplied at 3s to 3s 3d per bushel. As from 50 to 60 bushels per acre cai generally be relied on, j farmers might find it profitable to experii menfc with this alternative orop, so as not to Jiave all theip. eggs, in one basket. j '