"GROWING MANURE."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 276, 19 November 1913, Page 8

"GROWING MANURE."

THE GREAT PRINCIPAL OF GOOD FARIIING.

"Growing manure? What does ■« mean?" will be the thought that pass through the minds of many *],„ read the heading to this article. '-Grow ing manure; surely it should read: ■•'Ening manure." Xo, there is no mistake in the heading; we can grow manure _i well as buy manure, and the manure 1 w » grow is often more valuable, more TfiJ J ing, and gives better resulte than-thai which we obtain from the manufacturers or merchants. Let mc explain this, and m so domg I shall endeavour to force home a principle which many of us have been slow to recognise — or, more-cot-rectly, to recogn-sc its value sufficiently :to put into practice. .- I The great want in most of our X c V Zealand soils is hsmus. Now artificial manures are of great assistance to'the present day farmer, but they will not; directly make hitraus. ar.d you cannot ■>. on depleting land of its supply of humus' and expect to get full crops. Some of our Xew Zealand farmers are amazed at the great quantities of farmyard manure that their Old Country confreres use on their land, and some of them are prone to think that artificial fertilisers is really a better name—can take the place of the dung and the straw. This is only the caee to a very limited extent, and in many districts of the Dominion the land i≤ showin" very clear sigr.* of this. How, then, are we in a practical and economical manner to keep up the supply of humus and thus grow full crops? The application of crude plant food in the form of fertilisers will not do this, and moreover the mechanical conditon of the land under uch treatment will gradually deteTto. r.itc—particularly where the soil is heavy. . !

I had the above question answeredreI centh- in a manner I am never likely to i forger. whiJe on a visit to the State Farm. lat Ruakiua near Hamilton, and I only i wish that a greater number of farmers oouhl see the answer standing out in front of them as I did. Lar-t spring a twelve-acre paddock'of rather damp, heavy land had beai divided into three parts. On one portion vetchrci were sown,on another imasi tard, while the third was left fallow The tares ar.<l mustard were ploushed under at the end of January, and af'the end of May the whole paddock of twelve acres was sown down with oats, and during the winter fed off heavily, with ■sheep. No manure was used, and the' difference in the crop of oats three portions was an eye-opener indeed as to what the ploughing in of leguminous crops means. Where the vetches had been grown, the oats were immeasurably a better crop than on the fallow —or oh the land where the mustard hid been sown. As a matter of fact they ■were too heavy, and although only half grown, were commencing to go down. In colour they were that rich dark green that denotes full life and vigour in a crop, and well stc-oled out, while the oats on the fallowed land were not to be compared with them either in colour or growth. Round the'headlands of thaportion on which the tares had bo grown, the plough had failed to turn tha vetches under, and here again" mO3t striking evidence was furnished of the good | effects of ploughing in leguminous crops,' for the oatis a short distance-in ..were Ho better than in the. fallowed land. Theportion of the paddpeiO was very little better than the -fallowed, portion . which goes to show out whit I have often noticed, namely, that nnis-t-ard for a green manuring crop t asja. general rule, dciee not give the results, out.here in New Zealand that itldoes'jn, the Old" Country. ''. ;.''_;: Now the point I am endeavouring.to bring out is that the progressive farmer of the future 6hould turn his attention; to using fertilisers to grow leguminouscrops for ploughing in, and go build,nj>. what might be termed the natural fentU-j ity of his land, rather than go on yjax after year stimulating each crop 'mA gradually depleting the land of -its humus and available plant food. ■ Jt should be borne in mind that byipkmgjiing in a well-grown leguminous crop,, the farmer will improve his land for several, years, and for this reason the expense of growing such a crop should not be entirely charged against ' the rieit. ope taken from the land. The principle iovolved is a thoroughly sound one, ami it is one tliat must be sooner or' later put into practice in this country if'the fertility of our land is to be maintained . A comparatively "'small" quaritityjof artificial manure will grow a, "large" quantity of green manure "which will, give the farmer returns in crops out of aJI proportion to the initial cost.: ' nitrogen he will obtain from 'the ,«r' by means of the leguminous crops that he can grow will only cost him the rent of the iand and labour, and by a combined system of feeding off and ploughing in, he can nearly offset these^ On much of our land fertilisers wpl; be α-equrred to produce a good crop for, ploughing in, for it is poor economy to plough in a poor one. Money so spent, will be returned a hundred-fold, and the permanent fertility of the land built up. On. heavy land the ploughing in of such crops as peas, vetches, clover, etc., j is-. particularly valuable, for doing so/-often, converts an unkindly ddfficult-to-wo.fk land into a mellow, easily "wrought soil,* which can be bandied with a minhminiof . effort. I feel certain that if some of our fanners would only give this 6ysteni;: an honest trial, they -would etiek.to it-, for the rest of their Hves. Columnisand, • columns have been written on the benefits of green manuring, tout the writers; have .failed to bring tie great unfeljv ing principle into-practical use. ,;....' : Apother interesting experiment to "prove that cTops can be gruwn withont: the direct application of manure is also foeing carried out this season at 'Euakmra. It is 'by no means a novelty, but eerves to empbasiee the point I am dealing with,' and shows what can be done by systematic management and care in;rotation cropping. A paddock of 18 acres was in rape which had been fed-off withy sheep. This had been sown down in,; rust-reeieant oats without any manure, but had received a dressing of 4 cwt. ofcarbonate of lhne per acre. The oats- . are looking particularly well —a level crop of good colour which gires promise of a heavy yield. This is a practice followed by many good farmers in the South Island, but it is interesting to. note the success which is promised at Ruakura on land which has little natural fertility. More and more careful systematic methods of fanning are rapidly gaining ground in this country. The increased price of land makes euch essential to success, and no known system will put. farming on a better "basis than lottowing Nature's method of keeping up the fertility of the land, and in a great, measure this is what green manuring is. Dame Nature had no plough to turn, under the falling leavee of the bush hills, but ghs left time to do ±he work and it is the accumulated humus so formed from which our bnsh farmers are • ?apiDg their returns to-d*F