WINTER FEED FOR SHEEP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 131, 10 April 1879, Page 2

WINTER FEED FOR SHEEP.

A correspondent sends the Otago Daily Times, the following method of providing winter feed for sheep, He says it has been tried and proved a success ill the province of Hawke's Bay, and thinks it would bo well adapted to the Waikato and other portions of the Auckland Provincial District southward of the city of Auckland The great difficulty experienced by sheep-farmers is to provide a sufficient supply of nutritious green feed to keep their breeding ewes, and especially their young stock, in good condition during the winter and early spring, two points of the greatest importance, indeed essential to successful sheep-farming, To meet this necessity, there is nothing to compare with rye and rape, sown either together or in separate parts of the same field. By sowing during February, or in the early part of March, if possible, an example supply of feed can be obtained in ordinary seasons by the beginning of May, and can constantly be fed off during the winter and spring months, only requiring a short occasional spell, as it continues to grow with remarkable rapidity, A great recommendation is that rye does not scour like ryegrass or green oats, and is of a very fattening nature, promoting in a wonderful degree the growth and soundness of the

wool; while a certain proportion of rape along with it increases the quantity of feed per acre, and makes an agreeable change for the sheep. As the rye is a small grain, and the plants tiller out wonderfully, a bushel of seed per acre is sufficient, if carefully sown on stubble [or fallow land, It does not require first-class soil, thrives well on light lands like the greater part of this province. The best mode of sowing it is on the stubbles or fallow of this season, and to " rib" it in with the plough by turning over a furrow of from2in. 2iin., then to harrow it well, and finish with the Cambridge pressor, or an ordinary roller. It rape is to be grown with rye, the best plan is to sow it after the rye is ribbed in and well harrowed, and then to put the Cambridge presser only over it, This operations sufficiently covers the rape seed in the soft ground, About lib. of rape is sufficient to sow per acre in conjunction with rye. There is a new steel double-furrow plough recently introduced into the province, which with two horses, gets over the ground very expeditiously. Rye may also be shown profitably on newly-broken-up lands in the end of autumn, or even in the early winter, on warm dry soils, and will afford abundance of feed in August and September. The land is greatly benefited by beingpastured in the above manner, and when the spring grasses render the rape and rye no longer of consequence to the stock, it is the best system to allow the rye to attain a height of about six inches, and then plough it in as green manure. The land can then be at once sown down with English grasses as late as the beginning of October, with an almost certainty of doing well if properly rolled.