GRASS LANDS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 234, 2 March 1883, Page 6

GRASS LANDS.

I am amused at the discussion which my letter to the Times has provoked. Those who object to ray suggestion seem to forgetthat I only offered it as a sugsfftstion to landlords who are in a fix with arable land thrown on their hands. "Dart Vale" talks about couch grass. What will he say to the following ?— " Some eight or ten years ago I laid down a field of eleven acres with the very best seeds I could buy. I think they were supplied by Messrs Button and Sons. The land had been up six years, was cleaned as clean as I could make it, with root crops right well hoed and fed off on the land — certainly from 20 to 80 tons of roots to the acre. Since then this field has been mown every year except one, but it has been top-dressed with farmyard dung three times, and has had both cattle and sheep fed on it in autumn, and sheep in winter, with cake, corn and hay, but not very heavy feeding. The third year after it was laid down, about an acre of it (in a sort of horse-shoe shape) came up with sour grass which we call " couch," but Ido not know if it be really couch grass. Nevertheless that bit of the field is grazed by the stock quite as well as any part, and it is certainly the earliest bit of the whole field, or rather " was," for, strange to say, the sour grass has almost wholly disappeared, although it stood quite thick in the ground for at least four years. My idea is (it may be a mistake, no doubt) that the grasses suited to the soil will establish themselves by means of seed blown there, while grasses unsuited will assuredly die out. If couch, or scutch, or twitch be natural to the district, I have no doubt it will appear, and probably stay for a long time ; but I have faith in " bought food " fed to stock on the land so enriching the land in a few years that the pasture will improve, and this bought food should be given in summer while the grass is growing, and not in winter when it is dormant. I think that sheep and cattle know a great deal better than we do what they like and what suits them, and I believe that Nature will provide the grass suitable for the stock which for a long period grazes any land. If any man will walk over a hill pasture of grass land grazed wholly by sheep, he will find in July and August thousands of plants pulled up by the sheep and left there to wither and die ; and as pastures improve under sheep grazing, I am inclined to think this is one way in which lands are improved. Cattle are much less dainty than sheep, and horses are still less dainty. If you turn a horse, or several, day after day, into the same field, you can see to an inch where they feed. The grass is quite short where they have eaten it, and quite long just in front of them. That the discussion I have raised will do good I have no doubt, although only on a moderate scale ;but if every man who has read my suggestion would only try the experiment on a single field, and the very dirtiest field he has, he cannot lose much money by it, and a single season will tell him whether the grass he got off (by feeding cattle on it, mind) was or was not worth the cost of the seed, the oost of the harrowing, and the rent and taxes. If it be worth more than those items added together, then most assuredly he will have made a profit by his experi. ment. I see " Dart Vale " asks Messrs Suttons' and Messrs Garters' opinion about my suggestion. I have no doubt whatever they disapprove of it, and I also think the implement makers and the manure dealers or makers will also disapprove ; but the disapproval of "interested tradesmen in no way affects the question. Many landlords in the midlands are to a certain extent in a fix, and my suggestion was only to show them an easy way out of it. I see " Z." says the land will no longer keep " the landlord, the farmer and thelaborer. One of the three must go, and it will have to be the present owner." I suppose " Z." is a farmer, so I put this position to him. Most landlords have burdens on their estates (jointures to dowagers, sisters, and younger brothers, notto imention an occasional mortgage), which eat up about half the net rental. Now, if the rents are to fall, one-half the landlord's income will disappear altogether t What, then, Would " Z." do if he were the landlord ? Would he go to the " poor-house " at once, or would he first of all try his band at farming—or perhaps I had better flay " at graßing ?" If it really be as " 2." Bayß (which I do not believe), then most aSßUredty the first claßß to dis» appear will be the farmers, and not the landlords. The first Bet of "farmers working their own land," as " Z." puts it will assuredly be the present owners.— GKA.H. in the Agricultural Gazette.