PEDIGREE ENGLISH GRASS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4458, 17 October 1933, Page 8

PEDIGREE ENGLISH GRASS

The first of a series of crops which m'ay soon save British farmers from sending £1,000,000 abroad every year is now ripening in the nurseries of England (says the Morning Post of June 19, 1933). It will yield the first pedigree English grass seed to be put on the market, and -will turn bad and middling meadows —of which there is a disturbing proportion in England—into the permanent pasture with sensible treatment. Ever since it was set up by the Government in 1919 the Welsh Plant Breeding Station at Aberystwyth has been looking forward to the time when pedigree native grass-seed could be marketed. At present farmers spend £1,000,000 a year in buying grass seed from the United States and Scandinavia, and the imported product cannot always stand up to the English climate and English methods of grazing in the poor fields where it is needed most. An attempt was, therefore, made by the Plant Breeding Station to find grasses which would establish themselves permanently, give stock the finest possible feed, and produce abundant hay. Samples of grassstrains were collected from, all the world, and meimibers of the station staff travelled through Wales and England picking up promising-looking plants.