ROTATION OF STOCK

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 264, 31 July 1908, Page 3

ROTATION OF STOCK

A NEW THEORY. Writing of the sheep-sicknoss and cowsickness of pastures, with .special' reference Wthe bush lands of the West Coast of the North Island, "Hipi Kuia" says in ' Tho Pastoralists" Review " "Two settlers felled and grassed their.,adjoining sections the same year, the seed sown and the naturo of the soil being exactly alike. A grazed his with sheep, except, >a fow head of cattio scattered through the paddocks,' as is the usual custom, aud so far has boon considered good farming. For tho first ,few 'years A in his paddock adjoining B's grazed threo breeding owes to tho acre, and _his_ flock was noted as being tho best in the district. After a time it was found that tho paddocks would not carry so many sheep as formerly, until two instead of three sheep to the aero was found enough, and even with the lesser number neither the owes nor the lambs woro so robust. , „ "It seems to follow as a sequence that when the pastures begin to fail the stamina of the sheep follow suit, although there may be ; plenty ' of grass of a sort in sight. It

may bo coutended that tho falling-off in robustness of the flock was duo to bad breeding. "But it'was not so in this ease, as A was one of tho best judges in tho island, and never spared money in securing tho strongest ana best pure-bred rams procurable. Yet he could not prevent his flock going back ■ when tho pasture deteriorated in nutrition. ' B was not considered, to be on tho samo piano as A as a farmer, and certainly worked without any system. a year or two ho would graze nothing but sueep. lnen 'cattlo'would tako his fancy, .until such timo as another fit took him, and tho cattlo would bo cleared off, whilo at other periods sheep and cattlo would bo grazed together. The'result was that when A's land only carry two sheep to tho acre, and then only indifferently," B's land was capablo of carrying three sheep/real well/ This object lesson was on the West Ccast, and' in conversation with a Wairarapa farmer on tlio subject, he gave mo his _ personal experience, which was exactly similar. " When. pasture begins to deteriorate it is termed sheep-sick,. or. that it is infested with iiingworm or other microbes. But there are large areas of land sheep-sick where there is absolutely do disease, only that the sheep get into a debilitated state, and do not thrive, although there is abundanco of grass, which proves that some nutritious constituent is lacking, in the soil of grasses. Dairying may ' be considered in its infancy, yet already we hear complaints that the land is becoming cow-sick, tho- remedy for which is to stock with sheep for a time. In the olden times in Australia we used to stock tho horso paddock with sheep with good results. It is on these facts that I would suggest' a system of rotation of grazing, both as a maintenance of-pasture land and perhaps in a lesser degree as,a renovator. Taking the majority of farms here, a certain: proportion! of cattle are run with the sheep with tbo object of keeping down the rank or coarser grasses, so that it would be an easy matter to. test whether some sucli system as the following, would not give good results: — "Keep one paddock clear of sheep for.a year or-longer, grazing it with cattle only, following Up with sheep the next year or, period, so going'round the farm in rotation. Another reason for such rotation is that there ,is no better remedy, for the prevention of cure'of scour in lambs-than to.shift them into the cow paddock. Some may contend that rough cattle feed is no good for lambs. At one time I was of that opinion, but after seeing the way that a lot of weakly scouring lambs .improve if given a run in the cow paddock, J. hayo to alter my ideas. Autumn growth of grass is ofteu soft and wishy-washy, and .thoreforo liable to cause scour even if clean, and tho lambs strong, whoreas when put in the cow paddock they must perforce . nibble a bit of tho old dry grass along with' tho too succulent young growth. Perhaps somoyoung grazior will experiment in tho direction indicated and give readers of 'The Review', tho result."