DAIRYING ON ARABLE LAND.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9367, 9 February 1909, Page 6

DAIRYING ON ARABLE LAND.

It has been the general opinion afe Home, and is probably held oufc here, chat dairy farming is essentially suited for grass -land, and thafc agricultural farms conld not be ■well adapted to this kind of work. In some districts, writes Mr Primrose McConnell in The Dairy, this was-: proved an error long ago, and large numbers of cows are fed wholly with the produce of arable fields, but in other districts there ■ are men who-' would like to start a dairy herd, but are deterred from doing so from the mistaken idea that a great breadth of grass is necessary, and that most arable crops cannot be used for cows. As a matter of fact, the writer points out, it is on an arable farm that the greatest number of cows to the acreage can be kept, because a greater amount of crop per acre is produced. While on a grass farm it will take, say, from three to four acres to keep a cow with herbelongings all the year ronnd, she can be comfortably maintained' on ftom two to three acres where forage’ crops are grown. In the dairy districts in the south of Scotland this arable dairying has been practised now for nearly two generations, so* that its success is proved. In the south country the practice of growing forage crops for cow feed is largely followed, thus utilising the’ arable acres still more. In the dry districts the pasture usually begins to fail by August, and something isthen necessary to supplement the short commons of the animals. In. this way green rye, rye and tares, clever, lucerne, sainfoin, maize,, cabbages, etc., etc., are out and fed green either in the stalls or scattered out on a pasture field. A certain number of arable acres are thus utilised, and a large bulk of food provided to take the place that grass* does in a damper district. In most of the principal dairying districts in Hew Zealand, especially in the North Island, grass lands are almost solely depended upon, with some hay, ensilage, or a few roots or cabbage to see the cows through the winter. But a 'great improvement, could be made on those farms where the soil is capable of being cultivated. Of course there is much land devoted to dairying that is too. steep to plough, and having been orginially bnsb|oovered is practically incapable of being worked. On the other hand, there is' much fiat or' easy down land that can be worked after being cleared of stumps, and N by a system of growing crops for fodder purposes, the carrying capacity of the farms conld be greatly increased.