The Daily News SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19. PASTURE DETERIORATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 304, 19 December 1908, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19. PASTURE DETERIORATION.

The most important thing in connection with the pastoral and dairying industries of tins country is the preservation and improvement of pastures. We have alluded to the matter on more than one occasion, and are gratilied to find the Dairyman impressing upon dairymen the importance of the subject. One of the bogeys ol the farmer, dairyman and sheep man alike, is "letting the grass get away." Bearing this fact in mind, the Dairyman recently discussed ihe whole question of pasture deterioration with Professor Kirk, of the Agricultural Department, and incidentally put this question to him: "What is the best thing to be done with a pasture that is running out and getting worn as the result of heavy stocking and longcontinued grazing, putting aside the method of re-ploughing and re-sowing the land?" The answer to this was a very simple one. Professor Kirk's method and advice is to "let the grass get away." In other words allow it to seed, and thus re-sow itself. By this means an almost absolutely new pasture is acquired with no greater loss than the shutting-up of the paddocks in turn for a few weeks each year. If the reader (says the Dairyman) will just glance out of his sitting-room window lie will see before him a practical illustration of the wisdom of this counsel. In the farm garden he will see young vigorous plants of cocksfoot, clover and ryv, that i have grown from the self-sown seed of last season. And by the shutting up of each paddock of the farm, he can secure the same result in each paddock in turn. To go on eating down the grass, year after year, without letting the grass go to seed occasionlly is compared by Sir. Kirk to a nation that persists in killing off all its babies. It requires very little thought to see what would happen to a nation or people who adopted a baby-

killing policy for a few years, and yet that is exactly what is going on in i) 0 per cent, of the pasture lauds ot tile Dominion. And closely allied to > the question of pasture deterioration is that of over-stocking. We agree with our contemporary that a huge majority of the dairy farms of New Zealand aw heavily over-stocked for quite eight months in the year. On these farms in November, December, January and February the cattle get an abundance of feed with a minimum of exertion, the ideal condition for a dairy cow, but for the other eight months of the year a certain amount of unnecessary 'exertion has to be made by each animal to en-

able her to get all that her system re-1 quires. Where such a state of things exists, there is a minimum of good 'farming and a terrific daily loss going on. The Dairyman continues:—"Now is the. time, to give this subject the attention its importance deserves. If you) are satisfied that you arc carrying more stock than you ought, get to work rigit away and ctill out the Very worst in the herd. While the present boom prices continue every blade of grass

that can be turned into butter-fat means money to the dairyman, and care should be taken to see that the grass is con- j served for the milking herd. If you have dry stock get them off the place at once. Some of your neighbors often have a surplus of grass in the summer months at least, and many of these can often be induced to take in dry stock as summer boarders. The way the dairyman should look at the dry stock and waster question is this: if each dairy cow in milk is giving a gross return of say seven shillings per week, it is costing that sum per week to graze the dry cattle if the farm is heavily stocked. By letting the grass away a little at this this time of the year the whole of the pasturage is being improved, for it is absolutely the worst of bad farming to let the grass be for ever eaten down to the crown. This is, in short, the very best method for getting the worst possible results."