LUCERNE GROWING.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17259, 24 September 1921, Page 12

LUCERNE GROWING.

TO THE EDITOR Of*".THE PRESS." Sir, —It is allowed by all that lucerne will produce a profitable crop on certain soils whether it is sown in drills or broadcast. Mr Macpherson states that it will grow on light shingly soils if it is sown and tended according to his methods. That it will grow is admitted; that it will pay to grow seem 9 very questionable. My business takes me occasionally past two areas of light shingly land sown in lucerne according to Mr Macpherson's methods—one at Bankside and one at Rolleston —and I have no doubt that Mr Macpherson knows both of these plots quite well. The few acres on the railway line near Bankside appear to have a great deal of money spent on them, and each October tho croo looks most attractive, especially on the land overflowed by,the water-race. I have never seen sheep on the area, but I have seen about a hatful of hay cut r.nd carted. The area rt Rolleston appears to' contain over fifty acres, sown during the course of the last, three or four years. It is excellently tended—hor?e hoed, hand hoed, and weeds raked up. Each soring the crop looks mest promising, but I have never seen stock on the land, an 1 the t-»tal hav that has been cut appears, from the size of the stacks, to be five or ten tons. Will Mr Mn."pberson obtnin and publish a ctitpment of expend : ture-and receipts for these two areas t"> prove that I rm wrong in soy in e that they. Imve both been comn'ete failures, and that onv farmer growing lucerne on such land an-1 by such methods would soon be ruined?— Yours, etc., pROFIT September 23rd.