TOO MUCH GRASS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20523, 16 April 1932, Page 20

TOO MUCH GRASS.

: i A HAWKE'S BAY PROBLEM. L ! Hawke's Bay is suffering from a strange problem—too much grass. Following upon a complete year in which the rainfall was one of the lowest ■ for very many years, February was one 1 of the wettest summer months that Northern Hawke's Bay has experienced in a whole generation, says a local t paper. March also was an unusually wet month, considering the time of the year, and what was looked upon as an extremely serious dry spell has been succeeded by a late summer which, with the district's great fertility and warmth of sunshine, has resulted in an embarrassingly luxuriant growth of pasture. Every farmer is now faced with the l problem of keeping down the feed. The - easiest solution, of course, is to stock with cattle, but the farming community I . as a whole, and the Hawke's Bay farmer r in particular, have had in the past such ? bitter experiences on the cattle market ( that they are timorous of taking any steps which might lead to further losses.' Only this week a Hastings farmer sold a , .small herd of cattle at less than a fifth j of what they cost, and the experience . has not been uncommon. » Three years ago the position with rer gard to cattle was even worse, and one . station-holder shot 400 head to save himself the expense of getting rid of , them through the freezing works. It would have cost him an appreciable loss B even to drive them off the farm. g To-day the pastures are a rare sight i of beauty to the farmer in the district, '' but his joy at beholding their rich luxuriance is mitigated by his puzzlement as to what to do with so much " grass. At the local stock sales farmers are heard asking one another, "How y do you make ensilage?" And therein seems to lie the right course toward a solution of the problem of superfluous i grass. !■ The science of ensilage-making has not had as much attention as it should have had in Northern Hawke's Bay, and it would be perhaps right to blame Nature s bountifulness for that neglect, e Now, the local farming com- " munity are giving more attention to the a conservation of surplus feed against n the winter months, aud much in that k direction is being done. !S c. Ie shilling advertisement in the r- classified section of The Press will sell h your goods. Try it. i2 words Is, , three insertions 2a 6d, eH6

"Some people complain of the farmer's extravagance in possessing motorcars," said a Taranaki stock and station agent to a "News" reporter the other day, "but I don't regard the matter that way at all. I think it a necessity these days, and justified economically. Suppose a farmer were to revert to the old order of things. He would require a couple of horses for his buggy and they consume as much food as five cows. At £lO per head butter-fat the total would be £SO, quite sufficient to maintain the working farmer's motorcar. Besides, the farmer is able to get about more quickly with his car, and time saved is money saved. Then there is the added advantage of giving his wife and family a little change and variation in what to many is a fairly uneventful and drab existence."