GRASS LAND CONTROL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 898, 15 February 1930, Page 29

GRASS LAND CONTROL

DOUBLING PRODUCTION OVERSEAS EXPERT’S VIEWS "The grass lands of the Empire supply at least 500,000,000 animals. If all these animals were suited to environment, free from disease and sterility, and sufficiently nourished, their value would be far more than doubled or trebled.” So said Sir Robert Greig in a presidential address, delivered, at the Pan African Agricultural Conference. “South Africa,” he continued, "through Sir Arnold Theiler and his staff, has already demonstrated to the full part of this possibility. In discovering the cause of and the means of combating certain insectborne diseases, Sir Arnold and his associates have saved the Union millions of pounds. Equally spectacular is the biological control of noxious weeds such as the prickly pear in Australia and the blackberry in New Zealand. “In the field of animal nutrition, it has been discovered that diseases may be caused in farm stock by the absence of minute quantities of iodine, lime, phosphorous, or vitamines. The cure of rickets in pigs, and styfsiekte and lambsiekte in cattle, by the administration of bone meal and salt and other mineral mixtures has already saved hundreds of pounds to stock farmers.

“The application of the newer conception of the balanced ration which we now have as the result of*- the studies of physiologists and biochemists is yielding its return in increased production. “The intensive management of grass land in such great grazing countries as Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain is only beginning, but already it. is plain that production can be doubled under skilful management. Even the fertiliser or artificial manure, concerning which we know more than of almost any other agricultural improvement, has far wider fields to conquer than any which it has yet subdued.”