AUTUMN SOWING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4954, 11 February 1937, Page 3

AUTUMN SOWING.

On many farms a summer task of prime importance is the preparation of ground for the autumn sowing of pastures. In this task many seem to appreciate but imperfectly the great value of thorough cultivation in the production in the seed-bed of the fine, firm condition which so usefully fosters successful establishment of seedlings. The value of firmness of seed-beds is indicated to some extent by the superior pastures that often are found along “headlands” of fields or along tracks where there is greater consolidation than in the remainder of the field, this being due to additional passage of stock or machinery. The advisability of fineness in the seed-bed may be realised readily by considering what must be the fate of many of the small seeds used in pas-ture-seed mixtures when the soil is in a course or lumpy condition; any of these small seeds covered by lumps cannot with their limited supply of energy push their shoots to the surface. In districts in which the ravages of the grass-grub have been much in evidence during recent seasons, it is inadvisable to sow pastures in land which in the immediate past has been occupied by a cereal or by grass. On the other hand, the more land was without a plant-covering from November to December, the period in which the eggs which develop into the grass-grub are deposited in large numbers, the more likely is the land to be free from the grub during the following 12 months.