Does Continually Grazing Land with. Sheep lessen its Value?

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 983, 1 October 1881, Page 3

Does Continually Grazing Land with. Sheep lessen its Value?

The heading of this article has been suggested by a series of letters which were published in the Australasian about the middle of last year (1880), the title being “ Wheat verses Wool, the object on one side being to prove that the growth of wool could not be carried on for a series of years without exhaustion of the soil, any more than wheat growing could. On the other side, it was denied that there was any such exhaustion ; in fact, some of the writers were of opinion that land improved under a continuous system of sheep grazing. I think it may be said that the writers were divided into two classes ; one class being composed of men who reasoned scientifically, and who in effect argued that the constituent elements of wool existed in the soil, in fixed quantity, to which mere grazing with sheep did not add, but on the contrary was constantly diminishing ; and that consequently there must be a deterioration of value in the land constantly going on. The other class argued that, from their own observation, in some instances extending over a number of years, no deterioration took place from the cause referred to, and that consequently the arguments on the other side were fallacious.

It cannot be said that the arguments on either side were conclusive or satisfactory, and for that reason I am anxious that a similar discussion should be taken up in this journal, as the subject is a most important one, not only in New Zealand, but in all the rest of the Australasian Colonies, where there are immense areas of land which are quite incapable of improvement by the ordinary methods of cultivation, and which are of no economic value whatever except as sheep runs. It is therefore of great importance to the possessors and occupiers of these sheep runs to know whether there is a certainty of their properties decreasing in value ; and if such is the case, how soon such decrease shall take effect so as to materially affect the value of such properties. With regard to wheat growing, the effect of attemptiag to grow that or any other grain, year after year, for a series of years, is so well known, that it is quite needless to refer to the matter here ; but with regard to wool

growing, it is very different, so much so, that the writer, after a long experience, has not been able to observe any appreciable difference in the capability of any given piece of land for producing wool year after year without any rest or alteration in the style of management. Now, unless it can be imagined that there is in ordinary pasture land an inexhaustible supply of the elements necesaary to produce wool and mutton, it must be admitted that the supply must diminish unless some process of restoration is daily taking’ place. This seems to be the gist of the whole question, and the one which is necessary to discuss in these pages, for no one can deny that every sheep grazed upon a given area of land must take away, when sold or otherwise disposed of, a certain quantity of something or other, which is not visibly restored to the land. To make the meaning more plain, take a hypothetical case ; suppose a farmer to own 1000 acres of good hill sheep pastures, capable of carrying well one sheep to the acre all the year round, and that on the Ist December he places upon this land 1000 newly shorn sheep which, if killed and dressed, would weigh 401bs. each. On the 30th of November of next year he removes these sheep, now weighing 501bs. each when dressed, and besides this weight of lOlbs. added to the carcase, each sheep has yielded a fleece of 51bs. weight. There has been 15,0001b5. of something or another removed from the land, and as far as my observation goes, this process may be repeated year after year, for twenty years, or for any indefinite period of time. Chemists will tell us exactly what these 15,0001b5. consist of, but whatever the constituent elements may be, I think no one will argue that the quantity required for an experiment extending over twenty years existed in the land at the commencement. The question therefore is, where does it come from ? It is no answer to this question that the manure of the sheep themselves supplies any portion of what is required, for whatever is restored to the land in that way must in the first instance have come from the soil, and as a large proportion of what is taken away by sheep consists of mineral matter, it could scarcely be derived from the atmosphere. The disintegration of the rock by the continual trituration of the sheeps’ feet may supply a portion of the waste, but I cannot imagine that anything like the full quantity is supplied in this way, and therefore I trust that the question may be taken up by men who are capable of telling the readers of this journal what is actually taken away, and how the waste is supplied. — New Zealand Country Journal.