MAINTAINING FERTILITY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 430, 13 January 1912, Page 3

MAINTAINING FERTILITY.

It is admitted all the world over that live stock on the farm means an addition to its fertility and the speedy improvement of land impoverished by long-continued cropping. But stock on the farm is also a conserver of fertility, and the running of cows, pigs, or 9heep in the stubble is good business from any of the view points of the sound business farmer. Stable manure is the finest of all fertilisers, but the difficulty is, in the first place, to get enough of it, and, in the second, to distribute it in such a way as to give the soil a fair service, and not a patchy feeding in spots; and, more than this, it is the rule, where the manure from the stable is u3od at all on the farm, to cart it out and let it get bone-dry before it ia

turned under, in which case it ha 9 about the fertilising value of so much sawdust. The sheep is the fertilising friend of the farmer. It returns to the soil 80 per cent, of what it consumes in the way of fertility; it will eat what other animals will refuse to touch; it is a browser and bites close. It will chew weeds and waste right down to the roofs; ar,d in new country will eat oil young scrub as fast as it makes its appearance. All the while it is engaged in this good work of fertilising the land and putting it into condition to yield its increase, the sheep is piling on wool and making mutton out of weeds and rubbish, and thereby returning to the farmer a little in each hand.