THE HILL COUNTRY PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 2, 27 September 1944, Page 5

THE HILL COUNTRY PROBLEM

A Suggested Solution

(To the Editor). Sir, —As the fertility problem of our hill country farming lands is nothing less than a major national problem, the writer hopes that your widely read journal will permit readers to examine a ridiculously simple solution to this prob- ( tern. . , .Many of us are aware ot the very great interest today, in the work of .Sir Arthur Howard ami the vast possibilities in the bettered health of the human race, in his Humic Compost procedure of fertilizing the garden and the fruit tree. We arc even aware that Sir Arthur Howard could claim that foot and mouth dis- < ease was rampant all round his small farm in England, while his own cattle were unaffected. , It is possible to not only retrieve the earlier fertility of our hill country, but also to cover every acre of our bill country farming lands with what amounts to the full equivalent of the Humic Compost. The agency by which this can be achieved, is by the use of the humble "casting worm.” This may sound ridiculous. . . but that which has been fully accomplished iu the Wanganui and. Waimarino districts in these diverse soil and climatic types, must surely be possible of equal success in any other district. In the Ruatiti settlement on the road from Raetihi to all ill-starred Muugapurua Soldier Settlement, a farm that was all but abandoned (a farm that could not even fatten house mutton) is today well on the way to carrying more stock than it ever previously carried. . . and more, it is a highly successful fattening propositiou in the black faced lamb business On this farm the owner states that where he once carried 250 under-nourish-ed ewes, he now carries 450 mud fat breeding ewes. The casting worm has been systematically planted out over this farm. . . and where chewings fescue and stunted hard fern (pesia scabarula) and moss inches thick once nourished, a continuous sward of ryegrass and white clover now exists. This farmer topdressed one paddock years ago. . . with u completely “Nir result. All his success has I ' been achieved by the casting worm and the casting worm alone. Here let me say that once land has been “wormed,” . topdressin- would show handsome results, for the reason that the worms would. have created conditions that would permit the superphosphate to be utilized fully. The easting worm has created this Ruatiti farm into a veritable paradise or clover and ryegrass. It has replaced the former undernourished aud undersized stock, with good-boned, thoroughly healthy stock. We know that the. most vexed problem on all our least desirable hill country is the question of unthrifty” stock (particularly young stock). We' also know of the difficulty bordering on the impossibility of properly fattening even wethers, on millions of acres of such land. . Your readers may well say very interesting,’’, but, “will it be any use to me on my country?” A day or two less' than four years ago, the writer went over every acre of this Ruatiti farm, and brought back to the ’Kakatahi district 30 wormed sods roughly ten inches square and four inches deep. A district with less than half the rainfall of the Ruatiti and an altogether different soil type.. This Ruatiti farmer informed the writer that it would be three to four years before positive results could t do seen in the step up in pasture species. One vear ago. the writer could only have reported that the worm colonies were obviously working (i.c., spreading), and however much one might have wished to be able to convince oneself that there was evidence of a step up in pasture species aud a better winter green, it was too inconclusive to be taken seriously. I’rom the very ’onset of this winter though (three rears and seven or eight months after planting) the markedly deeper green as against the drab green of the unwormed natural pasture, literally hit one in the face. Today, with a few days to go. to reach their four years, the matter is beyond all doubt. White clover is coming to life; crested dogs tail and ryegrass 'and cocksfoot are commencing to cover the sward. . , , Whether it has been iu “root bound fiorin,” in pure brown top or dnnthonia, the results are all the same. The root bound fiorin has gone . . . the soil profile today is living and attractive soil, as against the profile of the fiorin which could be called “mere dirt” under a good half-inch of matted roots. We had an earlier casting worm that has covered some hundreds of acres with decidedly beneficial results. Our own ewe flock has increased by some hundreds and the bone and lambing percentage have greatly improved. The Ruatiti worm though, appeared to be a much faster worker (or breeder?). The tour years’ very patient wait for results here definitely appears to place the Ruatiti worms ahead of our own. Now, how has (or can) the casting worm perform these miracles . . . for miracles they are? For years the writer followed orthodoxy and thought that the worm “followed” fertility. Froth my own and the Ruatiti results, the worm can create fertility, under almost any soil or climatic conditions. The casting worm appears to. be the missing link in the chain of fertility. The worm cannot possibly do all these things itself —it would appear that the worm can create soil conditions wherein the other hosts of soil bacteria can properly function and by all their activities create full fertility of the soil. The Rothamstead Royal Experimental Farm tells us that there are 20 million soil bacteria in oue teaspoonful of highly fertile soil. . The fact that that almost abandoned Ruatiti farm could be salvaged from the scrap heap, clearly shows that all the elements for full soil fertility were always there. Yet any grassland or soil expert having seen that farm iu its deteriorated state, would have stated that its fertility had beeu completely depleted. How is it that the role of the casting worm has been so completely overlooked by agricultural scientists in every country iu the world? In our case, our virgin forests precluded the casting worm, as it cannot exist on a forest floor. Its advent on to our farms then lias been a matter of pure chance. In the case of this Ruatiti farm, the worms came on the roots of a young fruit tree. The writer has two Rothamstead Monographs (no higher authorities exist), “Soil Condition and Plant Growth” and “The Micro-Organisms of the Soil,” both by Sir John Russell, the present director at Rothamstead. In neither of these two books do “earthworms” receive more than passing mention and largely confined to the aeration of the soil resulting from.the worm holes they make vertically, ns they come to. the grass surface to deposit their faeces into what we know as “worm casts.” Iu regard to these worm easts, Rothamstead estimates that on highly fertile and “dunged” soil, the casting worm moves from 180 to 3GO lons per acre per annum. Under pasture conditions, the worm completely reverses a soil in 50 years. In so doing, I lie worm appears to be capable of “making soil,” in that subsoil brought to llic surface and frosted and acted on by the humus in the soil, can in the course of time become soil proper. No single aspect of the casting worm miracle seems more important Ilian its potentialities in the making of “humus.” Where wc have ehewings fescue, danthonia, and coot bound agrostis species growing on a characterless soil, we cun assume a least possible minimum of humus . . . and where on this same characterless soil after a few years of worming, we' have clover in profusion, ryegrass and cocksfoot on a now soft, pliable and rich looking soil, we can assume that this miracle cannot have been achieved without humus. In tile United States, in Australia and elsewhere, we bear gloomy tales of the devastation of hundreds of millions of acres of farming land through erosion, dust storms, etc., and largely ascribed to the loss of humus. Here, in New Zealand, by a systematic planting of easting worms, we can not only save every acre of our present questionable hill country, We can also convert those acres into litegiving ami fully healthy farming lands. Of very recent date, we have bad Mr. Sinclair Carruthers suggesting a “stocktaking and cataloging of our assets." 'This matter was featured in your, editorial columns on September 9. Surely, iu view of the casting worm miracle we have been examining, we could now claim for th,'d "sloekf.'iking” that every acre ot' our "poorest,” hill country can be made to carry fifty per cent, more stock than it does today, in ten years’ time. No country could be considered “poorer” lhau

land adjacent to this Ruatiti miracle and even the poorest scrub country in the Wairurapa can be brought back to clover and ryegrass, with all the stock health that such pastures assure and at a total cost: of no more than oue shilling per acre. All we require is that every farm provides itself with an initial worm colony, and as that colony permits, systematically plant wormed sods at such points on the farm that, would ensure a complete coverage in ten years. Some of your readers will smile, but all. the wriler asks them to do is to secure a few sods impregnated with tho true easting worm and try it out for themselves. They will regret in four years. . , when Hie results will be evident to such doubters as they, that they hare wasted four very valuable years. With possible Government programmes of scrapping many millions of acres of our borderline hill country, to fit into their recasting of the post-war economy of this country, it is a very late hour to come forward with such a simple (though thoroughly natural) solution of deterioration of fertility. . . but not too late. It even permits us to view soldier settlement in u much more hopeful light. . . for it now seems that we have no poor land, but rather some land that requires “worming'.” , , . An examination ot the writers four-year-old” experiments, plus ti visit to this Ruatiti farm, would dispel the scepticism and ridicule of the most prejudiced of critics. —I am, etc., R. O. MONTGOMEKIE. Wanganui, September 13.