REMEDY FOUND?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 36, 13 February 1939, Page 5

REMEDY FOUND?

BLSH-SICK LAND MINISTER IS OPTLMISTK EXPERIMENTS WITH COBALT Confidence that experiments at present being carried out by his department in connection with the treatment of bush-sick country by cobalt would prove successful and would counteract what has been one of the greatest handicaps of pumice country for years, was expressed by I he Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, when speaking at the opening of the Rotorua Summtr Show. “This district is, I kno\v, keenly interested in the research into the cobalt deficiency of what used to be termed ‘bush-sick’ country, and I am pleased to be able to state that significant advances have been made in this work recently,” said the Minister. “Last year a number of field experiments were conducted with the object of finding out the effect of top-dressing with cobaltised superphosphate. The results have been most encouraging, and it seems that this will prove the most practicable way of suppjying cobalt to grazing

stock. A comprehensive series of experiments has been initiated at Mamaku to determine the smallest amount of cobalt required and the length of intervals which may be left between applications of cobalt. The survey of pastures is being continued and an investigation of animal organs has begun in the hope that the estimation of cobalt in the livers or other organs may provide a simple and re-> liable method of determining whether the animal is receiving sufficient cobalt. 1 .Many More Cows Carried Mr. Lee Martin, in commenting upon the remarkable and encouraging progress during recent years in the development of pumice lands, quoted the following figures showing the improvement in the position during the past decade:—“ln 1927 the total area of land under cultivation in Rotorua County was 71,282 acres, in Whakatane County 112,948 acres, and in Taupo County 46,271 acres. Ir 1937, ten years later, the figures were:—Rotorua County, 105,016 acres, an increase of 33,734 acres; Whakatane County, 197,379 acres, an increase of 84,431 acres; Taupo County, 334,360 acres, an increase of no less than 288,089 acres. Over the same 10-year period the increase in the number of cows in the Rotorua County was from 5859 to 11,808, in

Whakatane County from 23,776 tc 47,888 and in Taupo County from 1592 to 3586. “Moreover, this advancement ha. ; not stopped,” concluded the Minister “Within the next ten years, in opinion, this is destined to become one of the chief primary producing districts in the Dominion.”