BETTER PASTURE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 82, 3 October 1929, Page 28

BETTER PASTURE

INTENSIVE TREATMENT

THE HARROWS AND MA2TORE

'{From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 23ra August. Lord Eledisloe, who is at the head of the British farmers who will shortly visit New Zealand, is an advocate for the intensive treatment of grassland. On this subject he recently addressed the British Association. Arable farming, he maintained, must "take its fair share, but no more than its fair share, in the ambit and economy of British agriculture, after due regard to the relative fitness and capacity of Britain and other countries to supply Britain's food requirements yon an economic basis. If, iv spite of the Kellogg Peace Pact (Lord Bledisloe said), a grave national emergency should ever again dictate the rapid and widespread culti- _ vation of potatoes (the only known " bread crop suitable for the purpose in our climate), the enriched pasture land of Britain, with its accumulated fertility, will prove when under the plough a more valuable national asset than poor arable land hastily applied to the unaccustomed production of cereal breadstuffs. In fact, grassland is bottled fertility—prudently stored in times of agricultural depression and of peace to meet future requirements. The economic efficiency of agriculture, like that of other industries, should be ganged by the profit which it earns. If grass farming can yield a greater profit than arable farming, then its enlarged conduct in no way indicates the decadence, even temporary, of the highest standards of British agricultural achievement. "THREE COWS TO AN ACRE." 5 The slogan of "Three acres and a cow," honourably associated with the name of the late Mr. Jesse Collings, and not inaptly describing in the past the feeding capacity of an average British pasture, may, in the light of the teachings of modern science, well be —and indeed seems likely (without ♦he temptation to kyperbole~"attribut»ble to political enthusiasts) to be— changed to "Three cows and an acre." The new system of grassland management involves a combination of three processes, and no one of thorn without the other two is calculated to , produce the desired' results. These are:— 1. Close and systematic rotational grazing of stock. 2; Systematic cultural operations, including harrowing and rolling to ensure uniform surface growth, and < also possibly mechanical "rejuvenation" to ensure due aeration and stimulation of underground growth. 3. Successive applications of nitrogenous fertilisers, without upsetting the balance of manurial requirements. Its scientific justification is based not only upon the two now well-established facts that herbage plants have their maximum content of digestible protein when young and short, and that the young grass is almost as rich in protein as clovers and other leguminous plants, while providing a greater bulk of food, but also —and chiefly—on the consideration (often overlooked) that grass is a crop equally with those of arable land and requires for its fullest yield to be cultivated and managed with similar care and to bo fed with the same plant foods, viz., nitrogen, _ phosphoric acid, and potash (and possibly lime), of adequate amount and in duly balanced proportions. AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. Lord Blcdisloo goes on to show what • was accomplished by Mr. W, Brunton, of Tollesby Farm, Marton, Yorkshire. Mr. Brunton's farm is 2OOft atiove sea level, with an average rainfall of 25in. The area under the new treatment ws.s divided into six enclosures of similar area, and previously carried two cows to every three acres for a grazing season of 22 weeks. (After treatment it carried two cows to every aero for over 26 weeks, besides sheep grazing for an additional four weeks in the early spring and up to the end of the year.) The enclosures were fenced with oak posts and wire, and each had water laid on. Lime (in the form of calcium carbonate) a§ well as superphosphate and' kainit were applied to the whole area during the early winter, and synthetic ammonium sulphate at the rate of lewt per acre to the enclosures successively at weekly intervals, commencing on 4th February. There was sufficient herbage to turn out the dairy eattlo to pasture without concentrates on the Bth April; iv previous years this had been found imprac-! ticable before the second week in May. To minimise scour they were first placed for a few days on an untreated bare pasture. The effective grazing without concentrates of 46 cows lasted for 185 'days, as compared with that previously of 19 cows for 150 days. Tho area under trial (27 acres), in fact, provided 8555 pasture days, as ■ compared with 2889 pasture days in- previous years. The herbage (which was never allowed to exceed about four inches in height) improved obviously in quality. The cattle were divided into two lots. Each enclosure was grazed . successively, first by the cows in milk (ten to the acre) for five or six days, and afterwards by half that number of dry cows and heifers for a like period, and then harrowed and the nitrogenous fertiliser applied. That, by rotational grazing on six enclooures, the first cattle returned to the first enclosure in from 25 to 30 days, each enclosure having a "rest" period of from about 20 to 30 days', varying in duration with tho time of year, weather conditions, and manurial treatment. Previously the average _f\nnual cost of grazing this land had been £3 10s 6d per acre. Under intensive treatment the balance-sheet now showed an annual expenditure per acre of an additional £4 (is 3d—as representing manurial dressings, fencing (on a, 15-yearsJ basis), installation of water supply (on a 20-years' basis),~and labour. As against this aggregate cost of '£7 16s 9d, the grassland area under treatment carried three times the number of bovine stock, which left a margin of &2 14s 9d per acre in favour of the intensive system (3 j £S 10s 6d— £10 Us 6d). The longer grazing season saved concentrates (previously required) to the value of £164. CLEANING AND CULTIVATION. Of the three main processes which constitute the intensive system of grassland management, viz., close rotational grazing, constant fertilisation! during growth period, and effective cultivation, the last-named is probably the most important, especially in its initial .stages. A large area of what looks, at least at a distance, like grass is sheer .vegetable rubbish. Grasses and clovers cannot flourish when, as is frequently the case, they are choked by moss or plantains on the surface, or separated from the soil which should be feeding them (oftqn, on an apparently poor field, a fine loam rich in humus) by a thick tangled mat of half dead and perhaps soggy root growth. Not infrequently in grassland management the lost fear of the cultivator is the beginning of wisdom. The grass crop seeds cleaning and cultivation like other farm crops, but seldom gets them in sufficiently drastic fashion. Not only are the spreading of dung ■with the harrow and consolidation of the surface soil with the roller desirable; the scratching, tearing, and indeed wounding, of pastoral vegetation and its root growth are necessary to tha restoration and maintenance of its and .healthy condition. Tho tines of tho harrow* may asefully be longer, Bharper, and much closer together tfcaa is commonly the case, and tie employment of some form of mechaarbal "zejuvenator" in the late win-)

ter or early spring may often prove salutary and rapidly productive of far healthier herbage of uniform quality and growth, although temporarily bequeathing to a pasture the appearance of a ploughed field. Implements such as the New Zealand hustler harrow, the pitchpole harrow, and the soealled "rejuvenator" of British manufacture all have their very definite merits for this purpose, but there would_ appear to be scope for a new grass implement for pulling and tearing up (rather than cutting) dead roots and bent plants, with numerous teethlike close-set tines, and having a rotary action. "Rejuvenation," although appearing to destroy the valuable herbage as well' as the rubbish, almost invariably results in its marked improvement from increased aeration. It is calculated especially to stimulate the growth of wild white clover. The watertight distinction between pasture and "arable" (i.e., cultivable) land must be abandoned. Pasture, without ceasing to be grassland, must become more arable 1 . Incidentally, following the thorough "cultivation" of grassland, the destruction wrought by the wircworm on conversion of pasture to plough-land is likely to be reduced to a minimum, not only by the soil consolidation effected by the roller, but also by the, tearing to pieces with the appropriate implement of that insect'a fibrous nest.