GOOD PASTURES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 81, 17 March 1933, Page 11

GOOD PASTURES

ON PUMICE BELT. SELECTED GRASSES PROSPER. Very interesting proof of what pumice lands can produce in the way of pasture is offered by the results obtained from work done by the Public Works Department along the Taupo-Rotorua road. With the object of checking erosion by heavy rain the department sowed grass on many of the fillings of the constructed section. For this purpose the following grasses were used: Bi'owntop, Chewing’s fescue, white clover, subterranean clover and sheep’s burnett. In each case the grasses have done remarkably well. Browntop and subterranean clover have made better progress on this pure pumice (with no topsoil whatever) than on many areas of apparently better soil more efficiently cultivated. The roots of .-.beep's burnett have, in some eases, penetrated to a depth of 17 inches. One of the factors helping materially to promote growth was the consoli- | dation of the ground by a heavy roller ; at the time the seed was sown. | The lesson to- be learned from these j wayside grasses is a valuable one, because Taupo road is bounded by thousands upon thousands of acres of pumice land now a wilderness of fern ami scrub. While there is a certain absence of regular water supply, which makes this land less attractive than N'gahuru and come oilier areas select cd for development, it seems plain enough that by selecting the right class of pasture a very large portion of this waste erm be brought into produc. lion. With the abundance of relief labour non available large areas of this I’aupo road land could lie brought into pasture at comparative small cost.