WESTERN WOLTHS GRASS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 29 November 1912, Page 3

WESTERN WOLTHS GRASS

A FJXK KOHAGE PLANT. A great wealth 01 forage, 13 loiio to the aero, is at present being cut for stock-feed at the Ruakura, Farm of instruction. It is the AYosborn Wolths grass, a variety of said to have originated from a plant plucked by the. wayside by a Dutch peasant. At Ruakura it'has undoubtedly given the heaviest yield of all rye-grasses, making a rapid dense growth and providing excellent spring feed, admirably adapted for cutting and carting out to stock. Sown on the 14th of last May, it was ready for feeding about the beginning of October. It is generally considered that a legume and non-legume combination, such as pea,s 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 subsequent cuttings. Undoubtedly a. grass which in a very wet sea.son 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 pea,s is a better milk-produc-ing ration, but at Ruakura the o" hf.ve milked just as well on the Western Wolths as on peas and oats. The. new rye should provide excellent hay for horses. A fact, which must not ho overlooked is that Western Wolths grass is an insatiable devourer of plant-food, and that over a series of years leguminous crops may yield as great an amount of fodder without having exhausted fertility to anything like the same extent.

Reporting on this grass, Mr A. H. Cockayne, the Department's Biologist, says:

'''Western Wolths rye-grass is a sport from the ordinary Italian ryegrass, characterised by its extremely rapid and vigorous growth. It stands as a striking example of the improvement of m-.ny of om - cultivated graces that can be effected by picking OuL those, variations that possess characters more valuable to the farmer than does that form which is looked Upon as the type. In most of oill* grasses the specific name really includes a large .series of forms that apparently breed true from seed, and it is obvious that certain of them must be more valuable to the. farmer than others. The selecting-out of those forms that appear to possess the most valuable characteristics is a work the value of which is now being fully recognised in the plantIn ceding stations of Europe."