Dominion’s Grassland

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20264, 5 August 1937, Page 28 (Supplement)

Dominion’s Grassland

Twenty Million Acres. Waste Lands to Pastures. The most outstanding feature of New Zealand farming is that over half a ton of live-stock products are produced and marketed each year per head of population, states Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Director-General of Agriculture, in an article on New Zealand’s grasslands. Over 400,000 tons of meat, 250,000 tons of butterfat and cheese, and 100,000 tons of wool represent the main commodities that make up this total. Our small population of about 1,500,000 can consume only a small portion of this production, so it is not surprising that live-stock products dominate the export position. Efficient live-stock husbandry the world over is based on grass, and as live-stock production is the dominant endeavour in New Zealand, so grassland is the dominant feature of land utilisation. One of Britain’s greatest attributes has been her genius for colonisation. Her triumphs in that direction are generally quoted in human terms, whereas in New Zealand it is the colonisation of British pastures that has been the basis of her success in human colonisation. In other words, the development of grassland reflects the history of the country’s whole development. What Small Band of Colonists Achieved. Speaking in terms of grasses, this colonisation has been done with a handful of colonists. You can count them on the fingers of both hands, and they are Englishmen all, responsible for the grasses and clovers that now clothe the 20,000,000 acres of man-made pastures. In the early stages of settlement New Zealand’s destiny as the greatest exponent of grassland farming in the world was not apparent, nor could it have been forecast. All the necessary factors were present with one exception, namely, the ability to transport perishable live-stock products over long distances. The products of farming, apart from those that could be used by the small local population, were in those days harvested crops or wool, and therefore until after 1882 grain and wool looked to be the only staples for export production. Wool certainly requires grassland as its production basis. It alone, however, cannot sustain a high per acre cost, and apart from the natural grasslands of New Zealand it would not have paid to produce man-made grassland over much of the country then densely forested, which to-day represents the most productive of our pasture land. Ag'ain, harvested crops call for easily ploughable country, and this, speaking generally, was the exception rather than the rule so far as topography and natural vegetation were concerned. Thus, in the earlier period of farming effort, land utilisation for that purpose had to be largely restricted to the natural grasslands, which, where ploughable, were used for grain and other crop production, and where topography precluded ploughing were used for sheep grazing.

New Age Heralded. These natural grazing areas were of low carrying capacity, and have remained so. Up to the early ’eighties the million upon million of acres of densely forested land did not look as if it would ever play any really important role in the rapid development of the country. But a change was at hand. The genius of Faraday, translated into refrigerated transport, at once made the forested land of New Zealand pre-eminently suitable for the production of grassland having high potential capacity for live-stock production. The bush-burn era of farm development commenced in earnest. It had previously been shown that cutting down and burning of forest could be followed by the sowing of English grasses on the yet warm ashes, and result in excellent pastures being produced. From the mid-eighties to the outbreak of the Great War between 200,000 and 400,000 acres of forest were each year cut down, burnt, and the land surface sown with grasses and clover. From May to December of each year up to 4000 men were continuously employed in cutting down forest, and from January to April a regular feature, particularly in the North Island, was the pall of smoke heralding the conversion of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest into grass, and that without the intervention of the plough. Second Phase of Pastoral Developments. In the execution of this work great skill was developed by the bushman, as he was termed, in his methods of bush clearing and in hand sowing. The double-handed sower who could spread evenly and rapidly from 15 lb. to 30 lb. of grass seed per acre equally well on steep as on level country was as essential in the conversion of forest into grass as is the expert ploughman in arable farming, or the expert shepherd in pastoral production. This work has now virtually come to an end. There are still large areas of forest that could be grassed, but it is the actual improvement of pastures on already grassed land that represents the second great era of our grassland development. The development of refrigerated transport had a very important bearing on live-stock itself. Regarding the value of the commodity—butter, cheese or meat—the essential factor rested on whether or not the pasture was suitable for the proper nutrition of female stock, the cow and the ewe. To maintain female animals adequately on grass alone, or where the major portion of the feed consists of grass, pastures must have a long growth period and must remain in a juvenile condition. Sheep Production. A long growth period of grass is provided for the New Zealand farmer through the beneficence of Nature. A splendid grass production climate ensured ample provision of young grass of milk-producing capacity in the bush burn era, new pastures being yearly added to the grassland acreage. The time, however, was not long in arriving when much of the surface-sown country began to “deteriorate.” From Nature's standpoint this movement did not represent deterioration, but merely maturity. In other words, some grassland gradually tended to be unsuitable for female or breeding-stock, and rejuvenation became essential.

Skilful manipulation of live-stock itself, the development of cattle as rejuvenators of grassland for sheep production, various phases of live-stock husbandry leading to youthfulness rather than old age in pastures, and regrassing of areas that could be ploughed, became prominent features in grassland management. Of comparatively recent years top-dressing pastures with fertilising ingredients has become general Honour to be a Grassland Farmer. Apart from climate, nearly all our soil types, whether initially fertile or not, can be brought to a stage of permanently high fertility provided a high degree of fertility can be developed in the top two or three inches of soil. The knowledge that the fertilising effects of top-dressing and of increased stocking are concentrated at or near the soil surface represents our philosophy of grassland management. Another feature of great potential significance is the recognition by farmers that modern grassland farming represents a technical art as complicated as any other type of land utilisation. This “grass mindedness” on the grassland farmer’s part represents perhaps the most important stage that has yet been reached in the development of New Zealand grassland. Grass is our premier crop, and it is an honour to be a grassland farmer. Sown grasslands at present produce some 80,000,000 tons of herbage a year. They cover 18,000,000 acres, so that average production is about four tons per year. Surface Fertility. Rotational or alternate grazing, the benefit of pasture cultivation and the various phases of grass management itself do not depart widely from British practice, but the grassland farm management as apart from the pasture management is in many cases essentially different. This is because grazing on grass in New Zealand tends to be an all-the-year process, due to the mild grass-growing climate. Concentrate feeding on grassland farms virtually does not exist, and the comparative absence on such farms of annually-grown crops results in the production per unit of labour being higher than where climate limits the period over which stock can be maintained from pasture alone. As a result of almost complete reliance on grass, it is but natural that the New Zealand farmer should place more importance on young short grass than has the British farmer. It is recognised that abundance of young grass completely replaces special nitrogenous feeding-stuffs both for cows and ewes. There are grassland farms in New Zealand which are producing from grass alone over 350 lb. of lamb and 56 lb. of wool per acre in the case of intensive sheep farms and over 750 gallons of milk per acre in the case of dairy farms. Complete exploitation of surface fertility, of breeding stock, and of the significance of grass individuality as represented by strain, could easily and rapidly result in New Zealand doubling her production of grass, with an ever-improv-ing quality of converted produce. In other words, our grassland history is still in the making.

The development and application of improved pasture management methods during the period 1922-27 was responsible for the world-wide recognition of the Dominion’s pre-eminence in that branch of agricultural science. From the experience gained it was realised that a judicial use of fertilisers would enable cows to be carried over large areas where rainfall was adequate and well distributed and where the topography of the land was suitable. During the Depression. In 1929 the depression began to develop, and an era of falling prices and economic chaos set in. Dairy farmers made strenuous and sustained efforts to meet diminishing returns by selling more produce. The rate of increase in dairy cow numbers was accelerated, and land and stock were exploited to the maximum compatible with restricted expenditure on farm upkeep. In the six years ended 1935 the total herd increased by 600,000 cows. Coincident with this increase, an apparent improvement has taken place in the inherent average production capacity of dairy stock. Prior to 1908 average production per cow was below 130 lb. of butterfat per annum. The average gradually rose and fluctuated round 150 lb. till 1921, since when improvements have been steadily sustained. The average now ranges from 210 lb. to 220 lb. per cow per annum over all dairy cows, and exhibits evidence of further advances in the future. Increased Butterfat Produced. Adoption of Improved pasture management methods, combined with systematic breeding of dairy animals, has placed the industry in its present position, the combination of factors having resulted in more than a 700 per cent, increase in total butter-fat produced in 1934-35 compared .with 1901-02, the actual figures being 49,000,000 lb. in 1901-02 and 410,000,000 lb. in 1934-35. The extent to which dairying is wrapped up with the economic structure of rural activities in New Zealand may be gauged from the fact that there are approximately 85,000 rural holdings of all types in the Dominion and more than 70,000 suppliers of milk and/or cream to processing factories. There are over 25,000 herds of a size which represent an economic family unit or multiples thereof.