Hurdling Sheep to Improve the Soil.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 409, 9 October 1889, Page 3

Hurdling Sheep to Improve the Soil.

In England the most important method of keeping .up the vigour of the soil is by pasturing sheep. The sheep and the turnip are inseparable, 1 ' and it is due to sheep pasturing that the farms in that country do not deteriorate in quality. Their plan of managing sheep for such purpose is very different from ours. We turn our sheep on pasture and allow them to roam at will, picking and selecting only such herbage as Buits them best, occasioning thereby greater distribution of manure than we wish. Sheep dung is very concentrated and fine, and if the animals can be made to feed on small spaces they not only strew the manure thickly but press it firmly into the earth with their feet. It is very rich in nitrogen, and Prof. Johnson claims that this is due to the fact of the food being nitrogenised by the air taken into the lungs, and from thence into the system and discarded. This, however, is not generally accepted as correct, for if such is the case with sheep it is also equally applicable to all other anuxals. Its nitrogenous qualities are, however, very appai'ent, owing to its highly concentrated condition. Fallowing is practiced to a great extent in this country, especially in the South. It should be substituted by sheep pasturing. To manage it properly the sheep should be hurdled on particular locations, changing regularly at stated periods. It has been claimed that 100 sheep, hurdled on one acre of ground for fifteen days, will manure the land sufficiently for four crops. The land is first sowed with turnips, the Swedes being preferred, as they keep well. Even in "winter these turnips remain for sheep. As sheep eat close to the ground, they leave but little of the turnips. The hurdles are made portable and are easily lemoved. or changed. As socn as the enclosed piece of ground has been eaten off entirely, the hurdle is removed just sufficiently to clear that piece, to an adjoining one, and the place lately occupied by them is reseeded with something else. As sheep are not averse to any kind of food, a choice can be made by the farmer as to the next crop. Among the many plants suitable for this purpose are peas and beans. Cow peas are excellent. A sheep will eat the pea i vine, peas, hulls, and roots, too, if he can get them. Heavy, tall grasses are not preferred, and so eager are sheep for feeding close to the ground that they have been known to become poor in flesh on heavy clover' pastures that were high. They love the young, tender gras?, and nearly all kinds "of weeds make good food for them. It cannot be denied that by a system of hurdling, and frequent change of location, they can be of incalculable benefit on poor soils. Instances are known in which wornout lands have, by being hurdled with sheep, been brought to the highest degree ot fertility. It is also a very cheap method of restoring land, for the sheep so pastured will not only add an increase to the value of the land, by bringing it back to fertility, but will, with wool and carcaee, pay a handsome dividend on any amount of capital expended in such an enterprise.