ADVICE ON FARMING

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21192, 15 August 1940, Page 12

ADVICE ON FARMING

BRITISH PRODUCTION URGE MINISTRY BUYS FARMS (Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, July 16 Whitehall is to practise what it preaches. Having urged farmers to make more of their grassland, the Ministry of Agriculture has now taken over two adjoining farms in Warwickshire typical of millions of grassland acres that are being neglected. The two farms are Drayton and Dodwell, two and a half miles outside Stratford-on-Avon. They consist of 600 acres of heavy clay in poor condition, and Sir George Stapledon, famed as a pioneer of grassland development, has undertaken their direction. He will try to show how to turn them into firstclass farms again on an economic basis. In addition to this long-term treatment an essential aim is to show methods by which these farms can grow more food in war-time. Three methods of treatment will be applied:— Improvement as permanent grass (by ways short of ploughing). Farming by rotating temporary grass with arable crops. Ploughing and reseeding with better grass, Mr R. S. Hudson, Minister of Agri-

culture, attaches great importance to this new station, which will be an advisory centre for the whole country, and he will himself inaugurate its setting up at Stratford-on-Avon.