WAIAU PA.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 1, Issue 57, 7 January 1913, Page 2

WAIAU PA.

WESTERN tVOLTUS GRASS. Since such a great amount of interest is being taken in Western Wolths grass, which has been grown so successfully in this locality, a few words about the gra;s may be interesting. The grass carries a great wealth of forage, and I notice that at Ruakura State Farm 15 tons to the acre was being cut for stock-feed.'\ Western Wolths grass is a variety of w ryegrass said to have originated trom a plant plucked ftom the way* side by n Dutch peasant. It gives the heaviest yield of all rye-grasses, making a rapid, dense growth, and providing excellent tpring feed, admirably adapted for cutting and carting out to stock. At Ruakura the seed sown on May 14th last waa ready for feeding about tha beginning of October. I; is generally considered that a legume and nonlegume combination, such as peaa and oats, is the most desirable green crop, but this will give but a very poor second cut. Western Wolths, on the other hand, provides several excellent subsequeti cuttings. Undoubtedly a grnß3 which in a very wet season will give an abundance of feed at a critical time for dairy stock is of immense value. It is contended that such a crop as oats and peas la a better milk-producing ration, but the cowl have milked just as well on the Western Wolths as on peas and oats. i lie new rye should provide excellent hay for forces. A fact which mail» not be over-looked is that Western § Wolths grass is an insatiable 1 devourer of plant-food, and that over a series of years leguminous cropa may yield as great an amount of fodder with ut having exhausted fertility to anything like the same extent. Reporting on this grass, Mr A. H. Cockayne, the Department's biologist, says:—"Western Wolths ryegrass is a sport from the ordinary • Italian rye-grass, characterised by its extremely rapid and vigorou* growth. It stands as a striking example of the improvement of many of our cultivated grasses that can-be effected by picking out those variations that possess character* more valuable to the farmer than does that form which is looked upon as the ■ type. In most of our grasses the - specific name really includes a large series of forms mat apparently breed true from seed, and it is obvious that certiin of them must be mim 3 valuable to the tanner than othefK The selectiriß-cut of those forms that appear to possess the most valuable characteristics is a work the value of whi?h is now beiig fully recognised in the pia i breeding stations of butope."