HILL COUNTRY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 289, 17 November 1924, Page 6

HILL COUNTRY.

PROBLEM OF GRASSING. EAST COAST DISTRICTS. Mr. E. J. Fawcett, instructor ir agriculture for the Hawke’s BayGisborne districts, has just returned tv Hastings after a tour of the East Coast made in company with Mr. E. BruceLevy, the Department’s Agrostologist Interviewed by a press representative this morning, Mr. Fawcett said tin object of the trip was mainly to give Mr. Levy an opportunity- of obtaining first-hand information regarding th* hill country pastures on the East Coast. “At no time in the history of sheep farming in New Zealand,” said Mr Fawcett. ‘ ‘has such attention been par to the grassing of bush country and thregrassing of secondary burns as at th* present. It is known generally thai the piredominating grass on the majoi portion of our hill country is Danthonia and a considerable amount of thought and money is being expended in at endeavour to Hold English grasses. Oi. much of the second-class hill country where reliance has been placed on ry< grass, cocksfoot, and white clover, th< turf has opened up and secondary growth has taken possession. We spem a week in the Matakaoa county (be tween the East Cape and Cape Runaway) perhaps the most recently brokei in. country of the Coast. In this district the conditions outlined above are becoming very noticeable. Once this secondary growth takes possession, it becomes a more difficult and expensive problem to get the country back to grass than it was from virgin forest. EXPERIMENTS IN HILL COUNTRY “The fields division of the Department of Agriculture is fully alive to the importance of this question and for some time past has conducting experiments on difficult hill country in an endeavour to obtain information likely to be of use, firstly in preventing the establishment of secondary growth and. also as to the most economical ana effective methods of regrassing country which has already gone back. Although this problem is far from being solved, much data have already been procureu and the station-holders on the Coast appeared to be very keen to avail themselves of such information. COUNTRY LOOKING WELL. “Speaking generally, the country right up the Coast,” concluded Mr. Fawcett, “is looking in beautiful condition, the general opinion amongst farmers being that the season promises to be first-class in every way.”