NEW ZEALAND GRASSLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND GRASSLANDS.

FACTORS IN MANAGEMENT. LORD BLEDISLOE'S ADVICE. "I am confident it is going to be worth the while of all farmers to see their land provided with the best possible grass, the best varieties of permanent life and leafy habits, and to treat it generally with the proper cultivation and said the GovernorGeneral, Lord Bledisloe, in the course of an interesting address on the subject of grass to members of the Citizens' Lunch Club at Palmerston North yesterday. Discussing New Zealand pastures, his Excellency said: "I am tempted to think that' New Zealand is at present preeminent among the nations of the world in intense grassland management, such as is to be seen in the'Waikato and South Auckland districts, and, I believe, in Manawatu. There are three important factors in intensive grassland management. First, a short period of close grazing'; second, cultivation, with the particular use of harrows; - and third, the us© of nitrogenous fertilisers, in order to obtain from the land a succession of crops of short grass, enabling a yield per acre four times as great as before intensive management. "An interesting fact about the new system of management," said his Excellency, "is that, instead of obtaining an enormous growth of relatively poor grass and clover at one time beyond the capacity of farm stock to keep it down, the growth is spread all through the growing season, which eomes in England six weeks before it was wont to come, and stays a month after. The period of autumnal growth has been extended by six weeks in New Zealand."