RURAL RIDES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 6

RURAL RIDES

Diversity of Production NORTHERN DISTRICTS IN GOOD ORDER The northern end of the South Island offers an extremely wide diversity of farming. It ranges all the way from large runs to the intensively farmed flats where tobacco, hops, and fruit are grown about Nelson. The writer last week drove from Christchurch up to Farewell Spit, and back over the Lewis Pass, and was impressed more than anything with the thriving condition of practically every sort of farming. Prices are reasonably good, it has been an excellent winter, and farmers generally are in great heart. Labour is the major difficulty. Production everywhere is being held back by the lack of it. Few farms now are able to produce to their full capacity, and, on most, development work is impossible because labour is not available, either on the farm or in the factories that make requisites for the farm.

Marlborough from the Clarence river north to Blenheim has probably never gone into the spring in better order than in this present spring. All along the main road the country looks splendid, with abundant grass, in most places showing a good spring growth, and with stock in fine condition. Lambing is general, and the paddocks look full of lambs, some of them tailed already, and well on their way to the works. After a fairly difficult summer, Marlborough, like Canterbury, has had an excellent winter. The weather has been open for the most part, with plenty of frosts followed by clear days.

Along the coastal strip of the main road is surely some of the best, and best managed, tussock country in the Dominion. The climate has something to do with it probably, as rainfall there is generally fairly good, but the robust growth of the tussock and the fine bottom of good grasses speaks of careful management.

It is the same story further north, and even the area inland from the coast is green and in great order. This part of Marlborough can look as dry and hard as any in New Zealand after a dry summer, but at present there is feed everywhere, and stock are in surprisingly good condition for the end of winter. An attractive place is the Tetley valley, where there are three rehabilitation farms of abou; 700 acres each, on which the men are reported to be doing well. Their piece of country certainly looks attractive, and there are plenty of signs that they are tackling the job with enthusiasm • Some years ago one of tne settlers m the Dashwood put down some padlocks to a mixture of subterranean clover and lucerne, and these flats last week were looking really well. The pasture had begun to move, and showed up as an even brighter green in a green landscape. One msn on this country looked ruefully at some clumps of gorse standing in his paddocks. It is being attended to by the weevil, and is not spreading much, but the farmer does not like the look of it. He says he could clean if up with ease in two years, but cannot get the labour to do it. Even the Wither hills near Blenheim have an unusual tinge of green. The nanthonia is making a good spring growth, but cannot hide the marks of erosion, which show up as bare patches of earthy and in channelled gullies. Erosion Control Some hundreds of acres of the Wither Hills have been taken up by the Soil Conservation Council as a full scale laboratory for investigation of different aspects oi erosion and its control. The area has been leit without stock for three years now, and the difference between this part and tne grazed country over the fence is remarkable. The main growth is of course of danthonia, with a good deal of bluegrass and a little catsear. A small amount of sweet vernal is also present, and in the absence of grazing has grown to a most unusual size. It looks more like cocksfoot than its normal self.

A system of small check dams, made with a few fencing standards and stakes and wire netting, has been used in the main gully to stop damage from surface water running off. Undoubtedly the system has an excellent effect, but simple as it is, it is still no doubt too expensive for general application to similar country on a wide scale. Trees have been planted on one face, and a most interesting development is the planting of phormium bushes where gullying has started on some of the faces. The flax seems to be doing its job. It is not growing very fast, but is thriving. Willow poles have been planted in bigger gullies. Over the Wairau River on the mein Nelson road the country changes abruptly from river flats to hungry country, onCe bushed, which is now mainly going into scrub and fern, or often to bare rock faces. It is typical of the country throughout the sounds area, and is a problem for the men holding it. An experiment with Cheviot sheep has been suggested by a Blenheim man interested in this country, and the idea has received a good deal of support. Certainly there is need for a trial of an alternative breed to either Romneys or halfbreds, neither of which usually do well on this country. Cheviots have a number of disadvantages, but with an infusion of merino blood, they might be *the answer. At any rate they are known to be able to produce good fat lambs on most unpromising country. The road goes up the Kaituna Valley, where the rich river flats contrast strongly with the hard-bitten hills. Some of the best of the land is being allowed to go back to gorse and other rubbish, but the bulk of it' is being well farmed. A fair amount of timber still stands in the valley and in gullies above it. This timber is a valuable commodity, and the farmers of the disstrict are making great use of it for fencing. The fences are more like those seen in the North Island, with liberal use of battens. One man has just rebuilt his road boundary fence with about six posts to the chain and three battens between. He has used macrocarpa, and the job looks good for a generation or more. Much of the flat land carries clumps of well-grown totara. Nothing looks more attractive than good grass paddocks sprinkled with these trees, and the stock seem to take no harm from it.. Lamb Fattening Round Okaramio are a number of good-looking places. The district was once almost wholly dairying but now produces a great number of fat lambs. The story is that lamb production in the valley was brought to its present importance largely through the efforts of one works buyer. He was impressed with the possibilities, and persuaded the farmers to send in any lambs they had. Sometimes the total production from one farm was half a dozen or so, including a couple of bottle-reared pets, and the proposition could not have paid the works very well. But from that start Lmb fattening grew. A little the other side of Okaramio is an oat stack that would entitle its builder to a championship in any stack building competition. It is perfectly symmetrical, with the butts looking as though they had been finished by machinery, and the rush thatch has not a straw out of place. It is most unusual to see in these days anything half as good. Throughout the valley, barberry has been used extensively for hedges. Barberry makes an excellent hedge, but it is liable to get away, and this has happened on several places in the valley. Over a great deal of the Nelson province, barberry is a minor pest. It does not spread rapidly, but the farmer: always has to be at it. A variety now' used extensively in the North Island 1 for hedges is seedless. It has every ad- | vantage of the common barberry, buti is of course difficult to propagate in 1 quantities. The most noticeable feature of this country right through to Nelson is the hills which have come out of bush. Trees paid well originally, and were

felled without any regard for the future. Settlers came in, and burned off the remaining bush. They sowed grass on the burn, and for some years had excellent results. Farming seemed as attractive as milling, and more permanent, but the fertility was soon exhausted. Pastures ran out, and fern 1 and scrub began to come in. To keep : them in check and to get a little feed i here and there, burning was adopted ;as a regular practice. Burning has only made the country go back faster, and throughout Nelson are the remains of homesteads which have been abandoned. It is a common, and true, saying among Nelson farmers that most of the hill country should never have come out of bush.