WINTER FEED.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 295, 7 September 1908, Page 3

WINTER FEED.

A CONSTANT LEAKAGE OF PROFITS. In regard .to .winter feed for stock (says our Wairarapa correspondent) some portions of the Jjush Districts aro very backward. Last week a dairy farmer near Eketahuna lost twenty dairy cows for Want of feed, and there have been othor cases of mortality, perhaps not so severe.. .The whole of ono Eketahuna dairy-farmer's herd, numbering over thirty cows, has been depastured to Dalefield, forty miles away from their homes. What can be done in some portions of tho district by roal hard work is shown by the statement.of two farmers near Alfredton, whoso 25,-acros of stumped laud brings them in a greater financial return than their 350 acres which are unstamped. Tho foregoing farm runs sheep, but the argument brought forward in connection with its possible reproductiveness applies ; equally, or rather more so, to dairy-farms. Yet in-some portions of tho Bush Districts there • aro hundreds of acres lying under burnt timber, and somo owners say that they will not clear the land till tho timber rots. It will take many years for that timber to rot: by that time the present owners may be dead or past work. At the present price of, firewood the clearing of' the land would more than pay for itself, and the land would bo improved £2 or £3 per acre. Then again some farmers are asking 7s. per cord royalty for the right to cut firewood on their sections. ' This appears to be rather an exorbitant price, and tho proper thing seems to be for these farmers to clear tho land themselves, and get a legitimate benefit from it by cultivation as early as possible. 1 " With' tho land cleared the, difficulty of ■ growing winter feed disappears. A Taranaki, dairyman who, seven years ago was a flax-cutter, but who took up a farm, and by a close application to his business lias become almost independent, ascribes his great success to the fact that lie has always fed his cows well in the winter. His dairy stock mortality was the lowest, in the district," fthd his cows were in a full flush of milk when tho season commenced. His system was to feed his cows on green oats, turnips, or mangolds, till about a fortnight before calving, when tho animals would bo put upon hay. Tho whole question of -winter feed lis of paramount importance to dairymen, and by noglecting it, they aro only lengthening tho days of soverely hard toil and mental worry. 1 There is, howovor, tho difficult predicament of tho leaseholder to bo considered, and it must bo admitted that the leaseholder' on a short lease, or even a long lease, has a' groat handicap in connection with the provision of winter feed.