WHEAT V. SHEEP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22339, 1 March 1938, Page 13

WHEAT V. SHEEP

ro TUB EDITOR or TBS PBEB9. Sir, —Your correspondent in Friday’s paper, signed, “Another Retired Farmer,” adds little knowledge to the subject. But it is only by well conducted controversy that the slow process of disseminating and spreading the new methods of agriculture is carried on. In the past, as your correspondent says, land was impoverished by wheat crops, but now, by the use of artificial manures, which are only deposits of the ancient past, a new method prevails. Retired farmers soon get out of touch with new ideas and new methods, but their criticism is always acceptable and their fund of knowledge appreciated. I made a statement in my letter that cereal crops pay for the renewal of pastures because by this process fluke, lungworm, nostril hot, urgot, pulpy kidney, footrot, caries of the bone, and several other complaints are checked by upturning the soil and giving sheep a new pasture free from contamination. Furthermore, turning up sheep pasture, which may be cattle sick, or sheep sick, adds manure for the wheat crop. Consequently both sheep and wheat combined add to “Retired Farmer’s” knowledge of how things are done to-day.—Yours, etc., C. H. ENSOR. Hanmer Springs, February 26, 1938.